Osun PDP Will Shun LG Elections – Chairman
Osun chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared its resolve to boycott the forthcoming local government elections in the state.
Addressing newsmen at the party secretariat in Osogbo on Tuesday, the caretaker committee chairman of the party, Dr. Akindele Adekunle said PDP cannot afford to identify with illegality that would result to exercise in futility.
Akindele however said apart from the fact that the exercise will be in futility, the concern of the party is the huge amount government will expend on the exercise despite paucity of funds in the cover of the state.
Recall that the chairman of Osun Independent Electoral Commission OSIEC, Otunba Segun Oladuntan had on Monday announces October 15, 2022 as the date for local government elections in the state at a press conference.
Dr. Akindele said despite the alarm raised by his party two weeks ago on the matter and the denial by OSIEC chairman, governor Oyetola who has refused to conduct elections in the past four years insisted on the exercise because his government had soiled it hands in so much alleged financial infractions and monumental corruption.
On the claim by the chairman of OSIEC that he has legal backing to go ahead with the election, Akindele said court will resolve the issue of which law is supreme between state and federal laws.
His words: “We are not unaware of a recently rushed bill by the state house of assembly to render life support to the brought in dead idea of railroading the state into a clearly illegal exercise. But, the law is settled that no state electoral law can override the provisions of the Electoral Act made by the National Assembly of Nigeria.
“The planned election, we want to maintain, is a futile effort that will certainly not stand and as we’ve mentioned severally, it is an attempt to plung the state further into financial abjection and misery”.
Also speaking, Civil Society Organisation led by Comrade Rauf Elebute of Movement for Democratic Rights and Representatives of Contributory Pensioners in the state decried the proposed exercise considering the lean purse of the state.