Less than 24 hours to the Enugu local government elections, members of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state stormed the state headquarters of the Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) in protest alleged exclusion of the party.
The APC members in their thousands, accompanied by the party’s disenfranchised councillorship and chairmanship candidates clutched different placards and sang solidarity songs.
They protesters sang “Ajogwu must go, monopoly must go”.
Similarly the inscriptions on the various placards read, “No APC, No Election”, “We say no to political disenfranchisement,” and “Our vote is our power.”
Others were “Say no to election exclusion,” “ENSIEC is not for a particular political party,” “Free and fair election is joy of democracy,” “PDP and ENSIEC are killers of democracy,” among others.
Men of the Nigeria Police Force formed a barricade in front of the ENSIEC office to prevent the surging crowd from entering into the premises.
The officers took over the headquarters of the electoral body as the APC faithful paralysed the electoral office with protests over an alleged exclusion of their ‘real’ candidates for Wednesday’s council elections.
Some sources said that the police were at the headquarters for distribution of election materials.
The police controlled the surging protesters who sang anti-ENSIEC songs and obstructed traffic.
Leader of the protesters and Secretary of APC in the state, Robert Ngwu, who addressed newsmen on behalf of the state chairman, Chief Ugochukwu Agballah, said:
“We are here to tell the people of Enugu state that what is going on in ENSIEC is not good.
“We will go all the way to supreme Court because this election tomorrow (Wednesday) will be voided, because you cannot exclude the candidates of APC.
“That is against the Constitution of Nigeria, 1999 as amended, and also against the Electoral Act to exclude a political party.
“We have made our position known to them both in writing and also through the media and ENSIEC still insist on the election going on.
“We cannot do anything but to show our grievances to let the state know that what is going on is not right.
“This is a new APC and we are here to compete with the ruling party in Enugu State.
“The list is supposed to be submitted by the chairman and secretary. But what happened is that the ENSIEC chose APC list by themselves.
“They chose the list not us. The candidates in the list they published are not our members.
“We have professors running for councillors in APC. We have retired DSS Director running for chairmanship in Isi-Uzo local government. So, how could those people not qualify?
“They did not show us the list in the first place though we submitted their names and that’s what is going on,” he said.
Also speaking to journalists, the publicity secretary of the party, Mr Charles Ako, said the conduct of ENSIEC “is a rape on democracy and our right to vote and be voted”.
“ENSIEC colluded with PDP to exclude APC.
ENSIEC Chairman, Chief Mike Ajokwu who addressed the protesters explained that the reason for publishing former chairman Ben Nwoye’s list was because he was one the Commission had related with over the years.
According to him, APC had two factions and the commission wrote to the national secretariat of APC without a reply, a development that forced it to accept Nwoye’s list.
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