Anger is currently raging among members of the Association of Registered Political Parties in Delta State.
They are furious that the Local Government Areas’ election in the state was long overdue.
Their anger heightened on Tuesday when they challenged Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan to prevail on the newly inaugurated Delta State Independent Electoral Commission and provide necessary logistics for the conduct of the polls.
The Chairman of the state chapter of Kowa Party, Hon. (Prince) Jude H. Eze, flanked by his counterpart, the Acting Chairman of the Advanced Congress for Democrats, Comrade Aduku E. Kelvin, in Asaba on Tuesday said the opposition divide in the state has already lost confidence in the newly constituted DSIEC.
According to Eze the commission since it was constituted has been organizing voodoo seminars to give a semblance that it was out to conduct free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “When the Governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, reconstituted the commission last year, he didn’t tell us we were going to get what we didn’t bargain for.
“What transpired on February 14 this year when DSIEC in collaboration with the Independent National Electoral Commission called for a seminar titled: “Building Confidence in the Electorate,” was a complete sham.
“I call such gathering, attended by Prof. Attahiru Jega, and a host of others, a kangaroo.
“It was designed to white-wash the tomb.
“In that gathering, DSIEC invited who knows who in the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party), including the party’s chairmen at state, local and wards levels.
“But the commission merely invited state chairmen of other parties.
“Ninety-five per cent of the participants were members of PDP.
“They say first impression matters most.
“Just look at the shoddy outing of the new commission.
“The governor turned the gathering into his campaign ground.
“He went as far as discrediting the All Progressives Congress at the occasion, accusing the party of not having neither state nor local government secretariats during the Delta Central Senatorial district’s bye-election.”
Corroborating him, the ACD chairman wondered why opposition parties were told to get set for the elections “when in actual fact they have no date for the election.”
But the chairman of the DSIEC, Akpoyoma Moses Ogbe corrected their mindset, saying: “This should not bring about complacency by political parties.”
Ogbe maintained that the commission believes that the votes of the people must count when the elections are conducted.
He said the stance that elections conducted by SIECs are won only by the party in power at the state level should be jettisoned.
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