BY RAYMOND OZOJI, Awka
National president of the Anambra State Association of Town Unions (ASATU) and President-General Eziowelle Improvement Union (EIU) Idemili-North Local Government Area, Barr. Titus Nnabuike Akpudo, has made it categorically clear that Eziowelle town union election slated for 29th June, 2024 must hold.
Akpudo who made the aforesaid assertive, unequivocal statement during a media briefing with select journalists in his office at the ASATU national secretariat Government House Awka, said irrespective of malignant tendencies and sinister moves to stop the election from holding by some disgruntled elements in the community, the legal luminary has said that the election must hold no matter the level of conspiracies to thwart it.
Akpudo said those boasting that they will make sure the election did not hold, have equally threatened to use Police and other security agents from Abuja to cause commotion on the day of the election and disrupt it to enable them unleash terror and mayhem on the community.
He also said that the same group of dissidents have tried in vain to pitch him against the traditional ruler; he didn't oblige them, saying that he has no reason whatsoever to fight the Igwe because he did nothing wrong to him.
The Eziowelle President-General who told journalists that the few erratic characters tormenting the town had sworn to make the town ungovernable for him since he refused to succumb to their whims and caprices, maintained that since the date for the town union election was announced and EIU branches owing the mother union tasked to pay their debts, it has been one predicament or the other coming from those frustrating the progress of Eziowelle community.
Akpudo said it is a serious war between him and those who felt they could take over Eziowelle community at all cost. He equally added that those plotting to scuttle the town union election were laying all manner of frivolous allegations against him including accusing the Local Government Commissioner of bias in the whole matter.
According to Akpudo, " Despite all the efforts the Commissioner made to ensure that the matter was resolved amicably, these people still went back to the village threatening that it would be over their dead bodies Eziowelle town union would hold on 29th June.
That the next thing they will do is to write a petition to the Inspector-General of Police in Abuja and they will level allegations against some stakeholders in the community.
That on the day of the election or before the election, they will arrest some key stakeholders including myself and if they come on that day to arrest, immediately arrest is made, the election will not hold and government will declare it inconclusive. That was their plan.
But I am saying that we are ready for them. The same police that will come from Abuja to arrest us; another set of police from Abuja will be waiting for them to be arrested on that day.
All I am saying is that the election must hold. Nobody has monopoly of police. And even the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) will be there on the election day. I have already informed the state government about their plan.
Nobody will handover Eziowelle community to anybody rather government will handover Eziowelle community to democratically elected President-General and his Executives come June 29th, 2024.
They want to takeover the community and then sweep under the carpet the money they have embezzled for over 6 years which they refused to remit to the community. Lagos branch is owing over N13 Million, Onitsha branch is owing over N8 Million and Abuja branch is owing over N5 Million. All they know is to scandalize people in the social media."
The ASATU national president who emphasized that Eziowelle people resolved with the Local Government Commissioner that the date for the town union election is sacrosanct and by way of rotation, it is the turn of Ubulu village to produce the next President-General of Eziowelle community.
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