Polling units: Afenifere asks Jega to resign

 

A pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has kicked against giving autonomy to local government administration in the country in the recently concluded amendments to the 1999 Constitution by the National Assembly.

The group also called on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to resign over his planned creation of additional 30,000 polling units across the country.

The group reached these conclusions after its meeting held in Akure on Tuesday at the residence of its leader, Chief Reuben Fasaranti.

Addressing journalists at the event, the Chairman of Afenifere, Ondo State Chapter, Chief Korede Duyile, said Afenifere had lost confidence in Jega’s capacity to conduct credible elections in 2015.

“Jega is pursuing a course that will affect the credibility of the next general election if he insists on going ahead with the creation of the additional polling units,” he said.

According to him, the creation of the units was totally against the interest of the southern part of the country, given that over 20,000 of the new units would be located in the north.

“We believe that Jega is acting on this based on uninformed issues. His actions are against the interest of those in the southern part of this country,” Duyile said.

On local government autonomy, he said the group had called on the Federal Government to come out clear on the recommendations of the National Conference before the report is eroded by actions by the National Assembly.

He noted that the granting of autonomy to local governments contradicted the position of the confab on local councils.

According to Afenifere, the recommendation was for the scrapping of the local government system from the constitution, so that states would be responsible for the creation and administration of local governments.

He also said the Afenifere was undergoing reorganisation to allow for an expansion of its membership given renewed interest from young elements from the Yoruba speaking communities to join the group.