The Board of Trustee of Article Dealers Association, Lagos – Badagry Expressway, has set up an electoral committee to conduct election for a new executive in the market.

Recall that the BOT had last week took over the management of the association as a result of the refusal of the president, Mike Elendu, to conduct election after his tenure has expired more than 14 years ago.

Speaking while inaugurating the electoral committee, one of the leaders of the BOT, Comrade Jerry Dimaka said that the decision was in line with the demand of the General Assembly of the market that election should be organized in the market as soon as possible.

According to him, as a people oriented leadership, they resolved to set up the committee immediately since power belongs to the General Assembly.

His words: “The purpose of the meeting today is to announce the members of the electoral committee with the mandate to organise and conduct election for a new executive that would take up the leadership of the market. There are nine blocks in the market and the extension making it 10, which is even number. In order to ensure that everybody is carried along, each block and the extension has a representative in the electoral committee and in order to have an odd number, in case of a tie, a member of the board of trustee has been asked to join in the committee.”

He said that the terms of reference of the committee is simply to organize and conduct free, fair, credible and transparent election within two weeks.

According to him, the members of the Board of Trustees would give the committee the necessary support to ensure that they would succeed in the task, adding that Prince Alexander Ezeobi is the chairman of the electoral committee while Chinedu Ibelo would serve as the secretary.

He said that from now onwards, all the executive of the current government and other appointees, including the Chief Security Officer, have been dissolved.

Speaking while accepting the responsibility, the chairman of the electoral committee, Prince Alexander Ezeobi promised that they would not disappoint on the task that was given to them.

According to him, they would make sure that the election that would bring in the new executive in the market is free, fair and very credible.

He appealed to all the traders in the market to give their committee all the necessary support in order to make their job easy.

“I want to appreciate the BOT and the General Assembly for finding us worthy for this onerous task and we are promising that we will not disappoint. However, I am calling for support from every stakeholder to make our work easy,” Ezeobi said.

The members of the association commended the BOT for immediately setting up an electoral committee instead of hanging on to power.