APC drags Ayade to court over LG elections

The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State has dragged the state governor, Professor Ben Ayade, to court for not conducting local government elections in the state.

But reacting to the development, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr Christian Ita described the action of the APC in the state as hypocritical.

He queried: “Please tell me which APC states that have held local council elections apart from Lagos. It is hypocritical.’’

The tenure of the 18 local government chairmen in the state expired on December 15, 2016, with Ayade directing all the out-gone chairmen with the exception of that of Bakassi Local Government Area, to handover to Heads of Local Government Administration (HOLGA) in their respective local governments.

Vice chairman of APC in the Cross River Central Senatorial district, Cletus Obun, accused the governor of undermining the law of the land in respect of local government administration in the country.

He told Nigerian Tribune that his party had filed a case at the Federal High Court, Calabar against the governor on the matter, especially for making HOLDA to run the councils instead of conducting local government elections.

Obun, who described the move as a complete illegality, prayed the court to grant an order stopping the release of federal allocation to local governments in the state since heads of administration were civil servants.

“As contained in the writ of summons, we are praying that the court should grant an order stopping federal allocations to the local governments because whoever is there is sitting there illegally, and that within 90 days, the authorities should conduct local government elections.

“By the Supreme Court judgment of December 9, 2016, you can no longer have anything other than an elected local government system in the state. Therefore, the allocations to the councils should be withheld because the status of the present heads is not known to law,” the APC leader said.

He said the issue of funding should not pose a challenge since the local government received their monthly federal allocations regularly.

“The Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC) already has a budget. Yet, the authorities in the state said they are looking for N6 billion but the budget presented by CROSIEC is N1.3 billion. So, what is the N6 billion for?

‘‘Local governments in the state are getting their allocations of more than N1.6 billion every month. Therefore, the issue of funding does not arise,” the APC leader claimed.