Nigerian Newsday

By Mu’azu Osekalago & Halima Omaku

The Chairman of Nasarawa State Independent Electoral Commission (NASIEC), Hon. Musa Agyo, has said that elections into offices at the local government areas of Nasarawa State would not hold until the enabling local government law was amended by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly (NSHA).

Speaking during a meeting between NASIEC and officials of political parties in the state last week, Hon. Agyo said "until the House of Assembly puts the proper legal framework in place, the local government elections cannot validly hold".

He explained that NASIEC was continuing with its preparations to hold the elections, assuring that "once the House of Assembly concludes its work and the proper legal framework is provided, the elections would hold".

The chairman regretted that NASIEC had to postpone the elections on three different occasions, saying that the postponements were due to factors beyond powers of NASIEC.

He assured all the political parties of a level playing ground during the elections, calling and called for co-operation from all stakeholders to make NASIEC succeed.

A cross section of the officials of the political parties who spoke at the meeting expressed displeasure at the postponement of the elections and wondered why it was taking the House of Assembly this long to effect the amendment to the law expected to pave way for the conduct of the local polls.

The Nasarawa State Chairman of National Democratic Party (NDP), Alhaji Ramalan Maina emphasized the need for the state government to "carry all the political parties along in all it does."

It would be recalled that following the dissolution of development areas in the state, the NSHA had began deliberation on amending the local government law to enable NASIEC conduct elections into the constitutionally recognized 13 local government areas.