APC heads to court over Obiano’s LG transition chairmen

Barely 48 hours after Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State appointed transition caretaker council chairmen for the 21 local government areas in the state, the All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday, vowed to contest the appointments in a court of law if they were not dissolved immediately.

Addressing newsmen at the party’s secretariat, in Awka, the state chairman, Mr Emeka Ibe, described the appointments as illegal, unconstitutional and an aberration as they ran contrary to section 7 of the 1999 constitution as amended, which stipulates that there shall be elected local government chairmen across the country. He said: “It is a pity that Anambra State is still fixated to the days of backwardness, lawlessness and impunity. What is happening now across the country is that people are fixing dates for the election of council chairmen but here, the governor has brazenly appointed caretaker committee members at the council areas which is unlawful. “We, in the APC, are against what the governor has done.There is a suit in court  instituted by our party praying the court to compel the governor to conduct local government election before the scheduled November 18 governorship poll. ”We are calling on the governor to, as a matter of urgency, dissolve the transition caretaker committee chairmen and councillors and conduct council election before the governorship poll because we will not recognize them.” According to him, the chairman pre-emted the judgment of our pending matter by quickly sending a list of the transition caretaker members, on Monday, for the House of Assembly to approve on Tuesday this week. “ But l want to tell you that we shall go back to the CJ’s court to challenge the matter. We believe that the reason for the governor to take the action during this election was for him to use the transition chairmen to raise money for his election by collecting the federal allocation due them and give them a paltry sum since they were not elected”.