Ben Ezechime, Enugu
The Enugu State House of Assembly has passed the Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) amendment bill 2024.
The bill mandates political parties to pay money to ENSIEC to enable the Commission conduct the Local Government election.
The Minority Leader of the House, Mr. Iloabuchi Aniagu, who lead the debate said that sections 5, 7 and 10 of the ENSIEC Law were amended to conform with the present reality.
Aniagu noted that the amended section section 7, now makes it compulsory for political parties to pay for the Local Government elections.
According to him, this would make the state government not to solely finance LG polls, as the government has limited resources to undertake such expenses.
The minority leader added that bill also reduced the age of ENSIEC chairman from 30 to 70, arguing that this would give the young people opportunity to participate in the electoral system of the state.
Also, Mr. Okey Mbah representing Nkanu East Constituency, said the amendment of the bill is geared towards ensuring that the electoral body conduct credible elections.
Mbah pointed out that the ENSIEC chairman would now be mandated to resign from the office, if she or he want to contest for the LG election, three months before the primary election.
However, Mr. Harrison Ogara, representing Igbo-Eze South Constituency, disagreed with the charging of political party money for the conduct of Local council polls in the state.
Ogara noted that the section 7 is in contravention of the 2022 Electoral Act and as such should be scraped, adding that it is improper to ask political parties to pay money before participating in any election.
The lawmaker argued that the controversial section would be challenged in court by aggrieved individual or political party.
Ogara requested that for the ENSIEC to adopt and use the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the next election, for the sake of transparency.
In his remark, the Speaker of the House, Uche Ugwu, while responding to Ogara’s request, said the state government is not financially stable to deploy BVAS for the next LG elections.
Ugwu expressed the hope that the amended sections would be for the good of the residents of the state, who he said always participated in the election of local government officials.
The House thereafter adjourned to Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024.
