…….we treat every party equally
By Amechi Innocent, Abakaliki
The Ebonyi State Independence Electoral Commission (EBSIEC) has said it never denied issuance of Form 2 to Labour Party in forthcoming local government election.
The EBSIEC Commissioner in charge of Information and Publicity, Chief Collins Agbo while briefing newsmen in his office over allegations by LP that the commission denied its chairman access to form 2, warning Labour Party not to blame the commission for its woes and discrepancies in the list of the executive of the party obtained from INEC.
He said that the LP man that came to collect the form 2 st the commission’s office was not in the executive list as provided by INEC in the State. He explained that he was told to go and harmonize with the INEC list and come back to collect the form.
Agbo noted that the commission has to follow the rules, electoral law and guidelines of the conduct of the election and cannot compromise or favour any political party but should give every party level playing ground to conduct free, fair and credible council election.
“Before we give this form 2 to any political party, we will cross-check the list of their officials, chairman and secretary, sent to us from INEC. We don’t register political parties. It is the INEC that registers political parties. It is the INEC that will inform EBSIEC.
“And this form can only be given to their chairman and if not chairman, duly authorized secretary. And when they come, we will look at the list from INEC and cross-check whether the person in front of us is the same or the name of the one that the INEC sent to us. Once that is confirmed, we give them form.
” In the case of Labour Party, when they came, we found out that the person that came was a different person altogether and we cannot breed crisis in the party.
“If we give to them, to their person that the name is not in the EBSIEC list, if their name is not in the INEC list, we will say we will give the person. So we said go and reconcile. Don’t blame EBSIEC for your woes.
“If there are discrepancies, it is not us that will resolve it. Go and resolve it and let INEC listen to us. We will look at the name, the authentic chairman of Labour Party and once they come.
“Yesterday they stormed here with all manner of propaganda and will I see a man that wants to fight. We are fortunate that we are not fighting with any political party. All political parties are our friends.
“We want all political parties to have equal opportunity, equal reach to us. No political party is discriminated against. But they cannot blame EBSIEC for their own problem, for their woes.
“They cannot blame EBSIEC.If they are not able to get their house in order, why then carry it to EBSIEC? EBSIEC never refuses to give form to any political party that comes with the authentic chairman of the party. The chairman whose name is contained in the list of political party executives that INEC sent to EBSIEC that’s our stand. Anything aside that will be creating confusion and EBSIEC does not help in creating confusion.
“What is the EBSIEC form 2? EBSIEC form 2 is just a form that they will list the name of their duly nominated candidates and send back to us. That is the EBSIEC form 2 and it is free. Nobody pays one Kobo to take it. So why would we hold it? Why would we not give it to the Labour Party?
“So they have to prove that they are the real Labour Party and collect their form. They still have between now and the 3rd of February to do their primaries, notify us and do their primaries. They can rectify their differences with INEC and INEC will inform us and we will monitor them” Agbodo stated.
