Dr Mike Ajogwu, Chairman of the Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) says it did not exclude any political party in the Local Government Elections in the state.
Ajogwu made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Wednesday while reacting to the alleged exclusion of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates in the election.
According to him, APC is contesting in all the 17 Local Government Areas of the state. It is not true that the party is not contesting.
“The person that is not contesting is Chief Ugochukwu Agballah.
“Agballah became the state chairman of APC on Feb. 14 when he received Certificate of Return from the party’s national leadership and by that time, all process of election has been completed.
“The chairman that has been there for three years is Dr Ben Nwoye. The law states that whenever anything is in existence, you presume that it was in existence until it’s removed officially.
“We stopped dealing with Nwoye as a chairman from Feb. 15 but Ugo Agballah’s appointment is defective because the person who signed the list is the Acting Chairman of Convention Preparation Committee and he is not competent to sign.
“If it was signed by APC, it would have been better.
“Even when Agballah came, I asked him to send his men but none of them have party cards and even educational qualification.
“Even, they didn’t bring their deputy, and I told them that without deputies, they are not qualified but he failed to do all I asked him to do but rather went on air to shout,” he said.
On alleged non provision of result sheets in some polling units, Ajogwu said that they were provided alongside other sensitive materials on Tuesday.
“I will not understand that result sheets are not there because I made them available to all polling units.
“I assure all political parties of free, fair and credible election,” he said.
NAN reports that the election has been peaceful but witnessed low turnout of voters.