Awgbu Elders Seek Soludo’s Intervention on Town Union Crisis

By Lawrence Nwimo, Awka

Some elders of Awgbu community in Orumba North Local Government Area, Anambra State have called for Governor Charles Soludo’s intervention on crisis bedeviling its town union.

The elders made the call after they raised alarm of plots of a fraction of the community to highjack their town union leadership.

They urged the State Governor to intervene on the matter, warning that early intervention would quell looming anarchy that may plunge the town and State into chaos and crisis.

Leader of the Elders, Chief Theophilus Okoli while reading from a text from the elders during a press briefing in Awka, Thursday, reported the interference of the Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Community Affairs, Hon Collins Nwabunwanne in the election process, noting that “the commissioner has no right to intrude into the affairs of the union.”

The elders expressed that the commissioner is neither an Awgbu indigene nor his office recognized as an organ of the Union, hence, has no right to interfere in the affairs of the Union.

They claimed that the Commissioner is playing on the side of the disqualified candidates and who they said were bent on subverting the constitution of the community by fixing an election in the community on Saturday May 14, 2022 despite the existing court order.

They also noted that the commissioner has threatened to use security agents to perfect the town’s election, this coming Saturday, with the intention to install a leadership favourable to him on the town.

Reacting, the Anambra State Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Community Affairs, Hon Collins Ezenwanne said the alleged unqualified persons were wrongly disqualified and had gone to court, hence, the suspension of the election.

According to him, it was his intervention that persuaded the litigants to accept to withdraw the matter from court after the elders unanimously agreed the withdrawal for the election to hold and for peace to reign.

He restated that one of the pillars of the state government is rule of law and that the government is bent on following the constitution which, he said, spelt out elections and modalities for conducting elections in every community.