By Raphael Ede
Enugu
The Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) yesterday reserved itself on the disqualification of 73 candidates of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and other opposition candidates for the November 4 local councils’ election in the state.
The decision was taken following a meeting with stakeholders of the opposition parties at the commission’s office, where members of the opposition took up the matter and were favourably heard.
ENSIEC had last week disqualified some of the candidates for non- possesion of tax clearance certificate, Permanent Voters Card (PVC) among other requirements.
Reacting to the development, the state APC chairman, Dr. Ben Nwoye, lauded the commission for responding to the cries of the opposition parties that had protested against the disqualification of their candidates.
However, he said there were still issues that needed to be resolved and advised the ENSIEC chairman, Chief Mike Ajogwu, not to allow himself to be forced into illegality.
Dr. Nwoye said that the ENSIEC chairman has given verbal approval to all the disqualified candidates over their inability to provide evidence of tax payment to participate in the election, but said that those that did not attend the commission’s screening exercise stands disqualified.
He insisted that ENSIEC neither followed due process nor its guidelines in disqualifying the said candidates, stressing that the chairman may have acted under pressure.
Nwoye alleged that it was unfortunate that the ENSIEC went ahead to disqualify candidates of the opposition parties who were in possession of the Temporal Voter Card (TVC), but cleared candidates of the PDP that have same card.
The council election has been scheduled to take place on November 4.