Labour Party, Others Kick As Independent Democrats Produce Head Of Cross River IPAC

By Ushang Ewa

The Chairman of the Cross River State Chapter of the Labor Party (LP), Mr. Baron Eyo led about four other parties out of the state’s Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) elections held in Calabar, the state capital on Thursday.

The parties that boycotted the elections alongside LP include All Progressives Congress (APC) Fresh Party (FP) All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Advanced Democratic Party (ADP).

But, about over a dozen other parties participated with Mr. Sunday Michael of the Independent Democrats (ID) emerging chairman of IPAC at an election conducted at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Also elected were Dr. Okey Enun of People’s Democratic Party as the Deputy, Patrick Ani of Democratic Alliance as state secretary and Honorable Gift Oqua as deputy secretary.

Others include; Engineer Eno Enang as treasurer, Castro Ezama as financial secretary and Christopher Eyibio as the publicity secretary to complete the seven man executive.

And, Mr. Eyo said that the IPAC team that came to supervise the elections used a list different from INEC to conduct elections and his name was not among as the LP chairman.

“We were invited here to elect a new IPAC leadership in the state. We had undergone screening; INEC had done the screening of all the party files and came out with the list of authentic party leaders.

“But when the IPAC team came, they brought a different list from what INEC had, so we are boycotting the election,” Mr. Eyo is quoted as saying.

The elections was conducted by an IPAC electoral committee from Abuja headed by the National Financial Secretary, Reverend Olusegun Peters, who is the national chairman of the Democratic People’s Congress (DPC) and supervised by the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Frankland Briyai.

Mr. Peters said IPAC is a baby that needs nurturing by the political parties to form a constructive structure that will aid the growth of Nigeria’s democracy.

He said the council has a code of conduct which mandates it to work with INEC to ensure a free and fair electoral process as well as abide by the provisions in the electoral act.

The head of INEC’s legal department administered the oath of office immediately after the elections with Mr. Michael in a message to CrossRiverWatch thanking “God Almighty for making this possible.

“I thank the 15 Political Parties that voted for us and the other 5 that did not vote.”