Governor Umahi last week signed an executive order banning the use of primary school premises, marketplaces and parks for campaigns by political parties ahead of the 2023 general elections.
A coalition of civil rights and political groups in Ebonyi State on Sunday faulted Governor David Umahi's Executive Order Number 3 of 2022 banning campaigns, demanding immediate abrogation.
Governor Umahi last week signed an executive order banning the use of primary school premises, marketplaces and parks for campaigns by political parties ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The governor insisted that political parties who want to use the school, market and park facilities must apply and pay a refundable sum of N5 million to the ministry of education in the state.
But addressing a press conference in Enugu, the coalition, described the order as obnoxious, anti-democratic and in contravention of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.
The Coalition made of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA); Democratic Rights Ambassadors; Ebonyi First Vanguard and Coalition of United Political Parties, however, threatened to challenge the legality of the order in court if it was not set aside after 24 hours.
It described as authoritarian the restrictions placed by Governor Umahi through the said Executive Order Number 3 on public gatherings and the use of public spaces for campaigns at a time the Electoral Act and INEC timetable mapped out for political parties to reach out to the electorate through campaigns.
The spokesman for the groups, Comrade Sampson Nweke, said that such a ban was tantamount to an ambush on the democratic process and a deliberate attempt to frustrate the peaceful conduct of the 2023 general elections in Ebonyi State.
"It is an act of unconscionable corruption for Governor David Umahi to ban other political parties from campaigning in the state even when Umahi has converted Akanu Ibiam International Conference Centre which is public property to the secretariat of the All Progressives Congress and is campaigning freely in public spaces and with public resources.
"The operation of section 1(5) or the 1999 CFRN (as amended) does not permit that the rights expressly conferred on Ebonyi people by both the Nigerian Constitution and Electoral Act 2022 be taken away or encumbered via a malicious executive order.
"Governor David Umahi is hereby advised to respect the Nigerian constitution which he swore to protect by withdrawing his unconstitutional executive order immediately.
"Governor Umahi is hereby put on notice that should he fail to withdraw the executive order restricting campaigns within 24 hours from now, a legal action shall be instituted to challenge his contravention of the Nigerian constitution and to set aside his obnoxious order."
Nweke noted that the ruling APC in Ebonyi State has continued its campaigns across the state with state resources and therefore demanded that the same free space enjoyed by the APC should be extended to every other political party in the state.
The groups also raised the alarm over what it termed reported cases of abductions, trial by ordeal and infringements on the rights of Ebonyi citizens who are members of opposition political parties by agents of the state government.