Kwara Governor Proposes Amendment To Push LG Election To 2025
…Proposes Amendment of KWARA LG Electoral Law, Group Kicks
Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has perfected plans to delay conduct of local government elections in the State.
Governor Abdulrazaq in proposed amendment bill on the Kwara State Local Government Electoral Law ask to change the notice period for Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission (KWSIEC) to conduct Local Government election from 90 days (as contained in the current law) to 360 days (one year).
Recall that AbdulRazaq recently sent to the Kwara State House of Assembly (KWHA) by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to amend some sections of the state electoral law.
Meanwhile, Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD) has condemned the plan to push Kwara local government elections to 2025.
ENetSuD in a statement issued on Sunday by its Director of Legal Services, Lukman Raji described the amendment of section 20(1) as a calculated attempt by the Governor to push the conduct of the Local Government election in Kwara State to year 2025,
According to them, Among many sections proposed for amendments, we are specifically concerned about the intention to amend section 20(1) of the Law. Of course, we are not in full support of some other sections, but they are secondary to section 20(1).
The statement read in part:
‘We consider the amendment of section 20(1) as a calculated attempt by the Governor to push the conduct of the Local Government election in Kwara State to year 2025, which is intended to be controlling the resources of the 16 LGAs through proxy in the name of the illegal Transition Implementation Committee (TIC) that has been repeatedly sacked by the Courts.
“Instead of following Court judgements and do the right thing, the Governor has been buying time to pursue frivolous appeal at the Supreme Court without any diligent prosecution of his case.”
“It will be recalled that in our press statement of 3rd September 2023, we alleged that some government actors are mischievously circulating the idea that KWASIEC needed one-year notice before it could conduct a Local Government election in Kwara State. We insisted that KWSIEC does not need one-year notice of Local Government election.
“While amendment of a law is not a problem itself, we insist that the proposed amendment of the Kwara State Electoral Law should be put on hold until after the conduct of the Local Government election by KWSIEC.
“We maintain that the proposed amendment is targeted at the expected local government election that KWSIEC has refused to conduct to satisfy the unlawful act of the Governor. Any attempt to amend the Law to increase the notice period of election to one year is nothing but an attempt to ensure that the Local Government doesn’t take place before year 2025, and this is a fraudulent exploration of the legal instrument to retain illegal TIC in office till year 2025.”
