After six years of protracted legal battle, the Katsina State Government says it has concluded plans to conduct local council elections within the first quarter of next year.
Governor Aminu Masari told journalists in Katisina that 70 percent of the requirements for the poll was already.
“70 percent of what is required for the election is on the ground, and we are hoping to conduct the election first quarter of next year.
“The delay in the conduct of the election was due to the court case instituted by the PDP, and we as a government didn’t want to go ahead with the polls due to the then pending case,” he said.
Masari had sacked the 34 local government council chairmen and their 361 councillors over alleged financial misappropriation barely a month after he was first sworn in six years ago.
The sacked local government council officials, all from the former ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), challenged their “illegal removal” from office in court.
The legal battle ended last May when the Supreme Court in a unanimous judgment, declared the sack of the council officials as “illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.”
The Apex Court ordered the state government to pay the sacked officials their entitlements for the remainder of their tenure.
Masari said the state government has paid the entitlements of the dissolved officials and a committee has been inaugurated under the chairmanship of Muntari Lawal, in collaboration with other relevant bodies for the conduct of the election.
