A new crop of administrators to manage the 27 Local Government Areas in Imo State would emerge Saturday, September 21, 2024.

The administrators are made up of chairmen and vice chairmen for each of the 27 council areas and councilors for the 305 Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) wards in the state.

The readiness of the state Independent Electoral Commission (ISIEC) chaired by Charles Ejiogu is still not certain as they are yet to release the list of candidates and voters who will be participating or casting their ballots during the elections. The delay is a breach of the guidelines for the polls. As a result, the opposition has called for a postponement of the polls but ISIEC seems not ready to heed to the call.

Though opposition parties like Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) have declared readiness to participate in the polls, observers still believe that it is only the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that is actually contesting the elections.

This is so because many observers see the opposition parties as unserious and lacking in adequate preparations for polls. Parties which are not in power in Nigeria hardly have money to prosecute their campaigns. This is all the more evident at the moment when starvation is ravaging Nigerians. Thus it is mainly those that have access to the commonwealth that are getting by.

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However, the APC seems to have shot itself fatally on the leg by resorting to consensus arrangement in the middle of the game. It was after many of its members had purchased nomination and expression of interest forms at exorbitant rates and gearing up for primaries that the party thought it wise to broker a consensus arrangement in the selection of its candidates for the polls.

The party sold its nomination and expression of interest form for chairmanship ticket for N3million while that of the councillorship ticket was sold for N1million.

Again, the party preferred to hand over its chairmanship tickets majorly to the sitting Sole Administrators (SOLADs) of the council areas appointed by the governor even in council areas where zoning or charter of equity does not favour the SOLADs.

The leader of the party and governor of the state, Senator Hope Uzodimma sensing the trouble the consensus arrangement would exacerbate announced the party's readiness to refund the fees for the nomination and expression of interest forms to unsuccessful aspirants on the platform of the party.

The party begun the refund on Wednesday, September 18 two days to the polls by issuing cheques to aspirants who failed to clinch tickets of the party.

Handing over the cheques to the unsuccessful aspirants at the party’s state secretariat, the state Chairman, Hon Macdonald Ebere described Governor Uzodimma as a man whose word is his bond.

In his words, Gov Uzodimma is a responsible man who keeps his words. Ebere also lauded the aspirants for their understanding just as he urged them to remain loyal to the leadership of the party.

Reacting on behalf of other aspirants who also got a refund, Pastor Uche Nwole, a former member of the House of Representatives and chairmanship aspirant on the platform of the APC in Mbaitoli Local Government Area also thanked the governor for keeping his promise.

He pledged that they would work for the party during the council polls. But there are other aspirants who are aggrieved over the consensus arrangement. These aspirants fought tooth and nail to clinch the party’s tickets but were shortchanged by the consensus arrangement of the governor. Such aspirants may work against the party during the polls. All efforts to calm frayed nerves seem not be working for such aspirants who were already seeing themselves as elected administrators of councils in the state of they were given the opportunity to vie for the positions.

Another thing that will pose a serious challenge to the APC is its quest to win in strongholds of other political parties. Already, opposition figures are seething with rage that the party won 27/27 during the November 11, 2023 governorship poll in the state. According to Johnson Okorie, this feat had not been recorded by any party or candidate in the governorship poll held in the state until last year. Okorie still doubts that Gov Uzodimma swept the poll.

“Gov Uzodimma could not have won in all local government councils. No, he didn’t and unfortunately, the courts affirmed he won’, Okorie said.

To add insult to injury, Gov Uzodimma thereafter declared the guber candidates of other parties in the contest as mere contestants rather than his opponents.

The financial autonomy granted councils in the country by the Supreme Court has seen to it that not only were many high net worth people attracted to contest the council polls, they are also set to fight vigorously  to ensure they clinch the positions on the platforms of the opposition parties.

There is also security threat as elections may not hold in the three council areas of Okigwe, Orsu and Onuimo where there was a spike in security breaches in recent times. Njaba Local Government Area is also a flashpoint. Even ISIEC has acknowledged this. Security heads also sensing security breaches on Wednesday, September 18 embarked on what they called confidence-building visits to these areas.

Last week, Njaba Divisional Police Headquarters came under heavy bombardment. The police said a gun duel ensued between its personnel and the invaders during the attack. From the account presented by the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, ASP Henry Okoye, the police had an upper hand as they neutralized three terrorists during the gunfight.

Recall that Gov Uzodimma spent his first term of four years without conducting council elections. He simply toed the path taken by his predecessors namely Owelle Rochas Okorocha and Dr. Ikedi Ohakim who also organized council polls in the seventh year of his tenure and one year to his exit from power respectively

The council polls of his predecessors were simply a coronation of their anointed candidates. They were no elections in the real sense. The ISIEC chairman, Emma Nwoye during Ohakim’s era announced results of the council polls without attaching scores to candidates or even announcing their names. He simply announced to the press that PDP swept the chairmanship and councillorship polls

It was therefore little wonder that Ohakim’s and Okorocha’s successors gave the council administrators through such a faulty process the boot immediately on assumption of office.

Obviously, Imolites expect nothing different this time. But the ISIEC and the state may need to exercise care this time so that no conflagration will be triggered off.