PDP sweeps Enugu council polls

The Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) has declared 17 candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winners in the local government chairmanship election held on Saturday.
The PDP also won 258 of the 260 wards in the state where it fielded councillorship candidates as election did not hold in Eke and Ubima wards.
The chairman of the Commission, Chief Mike Ajogwu (SAN) who announced the results at the commission’s headquarters at Independence Layout said the exercise was free, fair and credible even as he denied knowledge of any violence.
“I’m not aware of any bomb explosions, violence, rigging or malpractices during the election. This election is reliable and credible,” he insisted.
However, APC chieftain and the Director General of Voice of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has described the election as a sham.
He said that “the shambolic nature of the local government council elections nationwide, exhibited on Saturday, 4 November in Enugu State, remains a paradox to the quest for devolution of powers from the federal to states tier of government.”
According to him, the election was marred by late arrival of electoral materials, and other irregularities.
An ostensibly angry Okechukwu said that the election “makes popular participation at the local government level impossible, hence debasing democracy. To compound matters all state governments run rubber-stamp state Houses of Assembly,” making them vulnerable.