Posted by By Enyim Enyim on
Onitsha - Local government workers in Anambra state are threathing to embark on strike should Governor Peter Obi fail to reconstitute.....
Onitsha - Local government workers in Anambra state are threathing to embark on strike should Governor Peter Obi fail to reconstitute the state Independent Electoral commission before the end of this month. President of Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Chief Goddy Ibekwe has said.
Ibekwe who spoke to reporters yesterday said there was urgent need for the governor to reconstitute the Board immediately to enable the state conduct council polls alongside other states in November.
'The electoral law provides that the body to conduct elections must be in place for not less than 90 days before it could embark on the exercise. But since the governor dissolved ANSIEC, nothing has happened. And we do not know whether he does not want to conduct the local government elections like his predecessors.
'The NULGE and the NLC advise the governor to quickly reconstitute ANSIEC so that Anambra state will conduct council polls alongside othe states in November.
We (NULGE) also want to sound a note of warning that if we find out that the governor does not want to do this before the end of this month, we shall call out the local government workers on strike".
Ibekwe who is also the state chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) appealed to governor Obi to rescind his decision to pull down the structures in Onitsha North Local government for a mini-stadium.
He advised that the governor should call for a document by a past military administrator who moved the mini stadium to Awada and implement it.
According to him the construction of a mini-stadium in the heart of Onitsha North and South would not only congest the area but would amount to economic waste by pulling down already built structures.
He further threatened that NLC may be forced to lift the suspension on a planned strike should the state government fail to meet its earlier demands for 12 1/2% wage increase, monetization and 2001/2002 leave allowances.