From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja

The Kogi State House of Assembly has appealed to Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo to consider the renovation of Abejukolo General Hospital, Basic Healthcare and Educational facilities affected by the recent crisis in Omala Local Government Area of the State.The lawmakers made the appeal during the House plenary sitting on Thursday in a motion moved by the lawmaker representing Omala State Constituency, Hon Umar Yahaya.

The leadership of Labour Party (LP) says Ms Oluchi Oparah, its former National Treasurer, is not the National Woman Leader of the party.

This is contained in a statement by issued the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Obiora Ifoh, on Thursday in Abuja.

Ifoh said that Oparah was suspended indefinitely in November 2023 as a member of Labour Party for alleged anti-party activities, adding that her suspension is still subsisting.

He said that Oparah was never the national woman leader of the party and that she had never contested to be one at any point in time.

“A person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others is an impostor.

“Therefore, her recent actions, using the office of the National Woman Leader of the Labour Party to seek pecuniary patronage amount to impersonation.

“This development has immensely embarrassed the Labour Party, hence this disclaimer,” he said.

According to him, the national woman leader of the party is Mrs Dudu Manuga.

“She alone is constitutionally mandated to oversee the activities of millions of Labour Party women in Nigeria and across the globe.

“We are, by this disclaimer, alerting organisations including the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC), The Kukah Foundation, Non-Governmental Organisations, political associations, National Assembly, and security agencies to be aware of her dubious activities,” he said.

Ifoh warned any individual or organisation being approached by Oparah to contact the police immediately. (NAN)

Chairman of Cross River Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC), Dr Ekong Boco, says 10 political parties will be participating in the Saturday local government elections.

Boco stated this on Thursday in Calabar during the commencement of distribution of sensitive materials to all the 18 local government areas in the state.

He, however, debunked the speculations that the materials had already been sent to the council areas.

Boco, who showed everyone the ballot papers before the commencement of distribution, urged political parties to keep supporting the commission until the election was ‘done and dusted’ on Saturday.

“We will be using 3,281 polling units, as approved by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 9,843 ad-hoc staff, 460 supervisors, 18 returning officers and 198 collation officers,” he said.

The CROSIEC chairman said that all the ad-hoc staff were trained from Oct. 25 to Oct. 27, including the returning officers and ward collation officers, expressing the hope that they would conduct themselves well during the exercise.

“We want everyone to see that the process is transparent and the commission is clean,” he said.

Boco further stated that the voting, which would be manual, would commence by 8 a.m. and end by 2 p.m.

In his remarks, the State Chairman of Inter party Advisory Council (IPAC), Mr Effiom Edet, said that the council had observed the process by the commission, expressing the confidence that the election would be free, fair and credible.

“We have not noticed in anyway where results were signed for any political party and so we want to let the people know that something like that cannot happen,” he said.

Report says that Friday has been declared public holiday by the state government to ensure effective preparation for the polls. (NAN)