• Electoral body says , all criteria will be followed
Seme chapter elections of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) which was scheduled to hold today (Thursday) has been shifted to next week, owing to a purported alarm raised by members of the chapter over alleged attempt to impose a chairmanship candidate.
• Electoral body says , all criteria will be followed
Seme chapter elections of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) which was scheduled to hold today (Thursday) has been shifted to next week, owing to a purported alarm raised by members of the chapter over alleged attempt to impose a chairmanship candidate.
Our correspondent learnt yesterday that trouble started when the immediate past chairman of the chapter, who is also re-contesting for the position raise alarm on moves by some unnamed NAGAFF top officials to manipulate the process and impose a candidate for the number one position.
But the worried ex-chairman; Eze Ekene Ajunwa who spoke with journalists on Tuesday called for a free and free elections, because according to him, the other contestant vying for the same position does not operate from Seme border, even as he maintained that it is against the constitution of National Electoral Committee (NECOM) of NAGAFF.
Ajunwa alleged that the list of voters for the Seme chapter did not capture key members from Seme, rather members from other chapters who had voted in the last elections were the ones noticeable on the list.
According to him, for the Seme chapter election to be free and fair, the Okey Nerus-led electoral committee (NECOM) must be transparent.
When asked if he felt threatened by the opposition, he told journalists that, "so far so good, I can see some moves, but after NECOM verification, I will know what exactly is going on because constitutionally, I know that for somebody to vote at Tin Can Island Chapter, then it is not proper to allow such people to vote again at Seme elections".
"I am pleading with NECOM and the world in general, in the previous elections, nobody from Apapa voted for Tincan and nobody from airport voted for Apapa, so what I am asking from the NAGAFF NECOM is to make sure that voters and contestants should be from the Seme border chapter "
"We are not conducting Apapa election ,what we are conducting is Seme chapter election, so nobody should be allowed to vote again; most especially those that are have voted before".
He further raised alarm that if such voters are allowed to vote on the day of election, it will not be a free and fair election.
Ajunwa stressed that the essence of the election is to canvass for more members to join the association, alleging that over 85 to 90 active members of Seme Chapter are not on the voting list.
He further added that “if you are conducting an election with borrowed members then we are recycling and it is not going to help NAGAFF as an association".
Meanwhile the interim chairman of the Seme chapter of NAGAFF, Chief Sam Agbogu confirmed to journalists that most of the people who are to vote did not register with him and if such persist, he will have no option but to opt out.
Also addressing the media at a different location, NECOM Chairman; Okey Nerus stressed that the electoral commission had been insisting that all criteria regarding change of chapter must be met.
On the allegation of non-members of Seme border being registered to vote, he explained that,
"to transfer to another chapter, you must meet some criteria and NECOM is insisting that all of these criteria must be met, the rules on ground must be followed to the letter, because we are doing election in Seme must not generate any heat.
"Also, there must be genuine reason for transferring your membership, you must tell us your reason, if for any reason you have voted and you are transferring, we can't ask you not to transfer, but you are ineligible to vote because you have voted before in a command."
"NAGAFF is a family and though, there are speculations that some members who are domiciled in one or two chapters want to transfer their membership to another chapter because of their change of business, I want to disabuse our mind that it was just a coincidence that people want to transfer during election.
"We are doing election in Seme and that must not generate any heat and when you are transferring your membership all criteria must be met."
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