•ACN protests alleged rigging of chairmanship polls
THE Judicial Commission of Inquiry on the activities of the 17 local government councils in Enugu State from January 1999 to December 31, 2007 has said that over N11 billion of allocations to local government councils in the state within the period remained unaccounted for.
Chairman of the seven-member commission, Justice Anthony Onovo, who announced this while presenting the report of the commission to Governor Sullivan Chime at the Government House, Enugu said the commission recommended that the sum be recovered from the people responsible.
Meanwhile, members of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) blocked major roads in Awgu Local Government Area yesterday in protest over the alleged rigging of the December 10 chairmanship election in the council by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
They demanded outright cancellation of the polls, saying that it fell short of democratic practices.
But the PDP asked anybody not contented with the outcome of the exercise to go to the tribunal, saying it was convinced that its candidate, Mathanas Nnanna won the election clearly as was declared by the State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC)
Onovo explained that the commission went through the cash books and payment vouchers provided by the 17 local governments and the 39 development centres and scrutinised a total of 50,094 payment vouchers of the local governments from the year 2006 and also inspected and verified projects executed.
He pointed out that the commission was unable to receive any single document relating to allocation of revenue to the local governments in the state out of the Federation Account for any part of the period under review from any officer, past or present in the state.
According to him, up till the point of submitting the report, treasurers who served in four development centres, Nsukka East, Ezeagu North, South, and West had not fully submitted their cash books and payment vouchers as demanded by the commission at its inauguration.
The protesters, including men, women and youths carried placards some of which read: 'There is no election in Awgu', 'PDP must stop imposing unpopular leaders on the people', 'Mbanabo North PDP denied us our right to vote', 'Victor Nwankwo is our choice,' 'ACN is the party' and 'We need a better change in Awgu for good governance'.
They sang war songs as they marched round the premises of Awgu Local Government Secretariat.
The Guardian