aspirants for chairmanship and councilorship positions in the All Progressives Congress and the Labour Party in Kwara State on Tuesday called for the postponement of the state local government election scheduled for October.
The Labour Party in a statement by its state chairman, Mr. Johnson Babalola; and the state secretary, Mr. Mumini Onagun said it had serious concerns over the timing of the election after a careful study of the time table.
It therefore called for the postponement of the poll by two months.
The LP said, "Our position is based on the fact that not all the political parties are fully prepared for the elections, seen as PDP affairs.
"In view of this, the party want the period for the collection and submission of nomination forms to be extended to enable political parties sufficient time to conduct their primaries."
The APC aspirants also in a statement by Mr. Lateef Oloyin and Amode Abdulrazaq pleaded with KWASIEC for a shift in the election date to afford them the opportunity of participating.
In the statement, a copy of which was made available to our correspondent on Tuesday, the two who claimed to be speaking for the other APC aspirants, said their party, a product of the merger of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change and All Nigeria Peoples Party, had not come to existence as at May 28 when KWASIEC issued 150 days notice of the LG election.
By implication, the APC had no notice to prepare for the council poll, they said.
In their statement, Oloyin and Abdulrazaq argued that lack of notice was in conflict and inconsistent with the requirements of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
The statement read in part, "By your commission's timetable, the collection of nomination forms (KWASIEC 007 and KWASIEC 008) by political parties closed on Monday, July 22 whereas APC was registered as a political party on July 31.
"As at today, APC as a full-fledged political party has not collected nomination forms, which means it cannot sponsor candidates in the forth-coming LG election.
"The fundamental question that agitates the mind of fair-minded individuals in the state of harmony today is, how will the conduct of LG election in accordance with the present time-table issued by your commission not disqualify, incapacitate and violate the rights of those individuals who would have contested the said election under the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change and All Nigeria Peoples Party due to no fault of theirs now found themselves in the newly registered APC which cannot, due to certain formalities to be met, sponsor candidates in the said election?"
The party appealed to KWASIEC to postpone the council election to allow all interested parties to participate, stressing that to do otherwise would amount to a violation of the inalienable rights of the individuals under the Nigerian Constitution.
