The Abia State government has expressed its resolve to support the new 17 Local Government Chairmen in the state regardless of their party affiliations, to promote unity and development in the State.
The Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Mr Uzo Nwachukwu, made this known yesterday (Monday, November 4) at a press briefing on the outcome of the State Executive Council meeting in the Government House, Umuahia.
Nwachukwu said the emergence of LG Chairmen from other political parties, instead of the ruling Labour Party (LP), reinforces the fact that leadership should be about service to the people, not just political interests.
“For us, as long as the elected officials are there for the interest of the people of Abia, the government will support them.
“As long as they are there to deliver the dividend of democracy, good governance for Abia, we support them.
“This government is a government of the Labour Party but everything about politics is all about governance; people vote for people not party,” Nwachukwu said.
He said that LP still fielded candidates in the LG elections but the people of Abia voted based on the pedigree of the individuals that contested, not the party.
He said that before the council election, the government continually encouraged the electorate to vote for credible candidates.
Nwachukwu also said that the internal issues within the LP caused the majority of its members to decamp and join other political parties of their choice.
“We all understand that the Abure camp had gone to court and by whatever means they had got a judgment that gives them the legal platform to be the ones in charge of the Labour Party.
“This is against what the majority of those in the Labour Party believe in, including Gov. Alex Otti and all our elected representatives, both at the national and state level, who had endorsed raising a caretaker.
“We don’t want to go into the details of problems in the Labour Party but they have raised a lot of disaffection among some of our people who had gone to other parties and decided to contest on their platforms.
“Incidentally those were some of our finest and we decided not to stop them,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in the Saturday, November 2 LG election, Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) clinched 15 chairmanship seats and the Young Progressives Party (YPP) two councils, while the LP, the ruling party, did not get any.
