By Anthony Arugba
DELTA State Political Parties Stakeholders Forum, on Friday, dissociated itself from a recent Federal High Court, Asaba, suit seeking to suspend the March 6, 2021, Local Government election in Delta State on grounds of political parties’ exclusion.
The group made their position known in a communique reached on January 28, 2021, in Asaba, the state capital.
The communiqué clarified that it only employed legal means to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to obey a subsisting court order that voided the deregistration of 74 political parties through a suit filed by 23 parties.
It read in part: “Information reaching us recently is that the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission has been joined in the suit in a manner that suggests that the 74 earlier deregistered political parties are through the High Court seeking to stop the March 6, 2021 local government election on grounds of our exclusion from the LG polls.
“Our grouse and disagreement with this development is that it was not the intendment of our legal pursuit, which was to begin and end with INEC obeying a subsisting court order that voided the deregistration of 74 political parties through the suit filed by 23 political parties.
“We the political parties have resolved to continue through legal means to compel INEC to restate our political parties name in the list of registered political parties in Nigeria.
The political parties, who recalled with nostalgia the cordial relationship between them and the Delta State Government, noted: “We affirm our unflinching support for the administration of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, who is performing excellently in office and has a good working relationship with other political parties within the state, which has led to his (Okowa’s) appointment of six political parties chairmen in his administration.
“We shall continue to recognize our standing cordial relationship with government through the release of our grants and benefits to all political parties, as we continue to pursue legal means aimed at making INEC to accord recognition to our political parties in line with the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja,” the communiqué added.
