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Ekiti State government has denied appointing card-carrying members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) for the purpose of conducting the local government election.
The state’s Commissioner for Local Government, Community Development and Chieftaincy Affairs, Kolapo Kolade, said the allegation is false and unfounded, insisting that SIEC members are non-partisan and credible individuals whose integrity cannot be questioned by anybody.
Kolade, who spoke on Tuesday at a briefing on the activities of his ministry in the last one year, said the SIEC, as presently constituted, is an impartial and unbiased umpire to conduct a credible council poll on December 19.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state has filed a suit challenging the composition of SIEC, claiming that the electoral agency is composed of card-carrying PDP members.
Kolade said the conduct of the local government poll would offer what he called “a clear break from the present caretaker committee arrangement which has been in place since 2010.”
He disclosed that the ministry had in the last one year settled chieftaincy matters in some communities as well as some boundary disputes to ensure peace in the state.
The commissioner revealed that the Ayo Fayose administration had peacefully resolved kingship tussles in nine communities which had been without monarchs owing to interests from certain quarters.