The Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission(RSIEC) has told political parties interested in participating in the fort coming local government elections to hold their primaries on Friday, July 19 and Wednesday, July 24 2024.
The Commission asked the parties to submit the names of their successful candidates promptly.
Professor Simon Emenike-Wali, the Commissioner in charge of Political Parties and Monitoring conveyed this during a meeting with Local party leaders where he urged the parties to disclose the revenues from their party’s primaries to the commission for assessments.
Emenike-Wali also mentioned that the commission has recorded five cases of double nominations and that 16 out of the 19 registered political parties have already collected interest expression forms.
He further outlined the objectives of the meeting which included discussing the screening of candidates, the deadline for returning nomination forms and issues related to tax clearance.
He said: For submission of Venues, 8 and 9 for primaries by political parties is Friday 19th to Wednesday 24th July 2024. Parties should correctly fill and return the completed form given to them by RSIEC captioned Particulars of positions to be contested for the 2024 Local Government Council Elections in Rivers State. You have been given that form so notify RSIEC of the venue, date and time for their party primaries.
Early, the state chairman of RSIEC, Justice Adolphus Enebeli, retired, emphasized that the tax clearance form should be issued free of charge by the Rivers State Internal Board of Revenue.
Enebeli stressed the importance of politicians embodying the spirit of sportsmanship to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
“The conduct of an election in a democratic society is not a stand-alone function of the commission or commissioners, no, we can not do it, it is with your cooperation.”
Meanwhile, representatives of the political parties present at the meeting underscored the need for RSIEC to resolve the issues of double nominations to prevent unnecessary expenses for parties and individuals.
Rivers Electoral Commission Sets Timeframe For LG Party Primaries is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
