Minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, who is seeking to contest the presidency, has stated that he doesn’t need to resign over section 84(12) of the Electoral Act 2022.
He spoke on Thursday when he featured on Channels Television.
There has been controversy over the aforementioned section which states: “No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate or be voted for at the convention or congress of any political party for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election.”
Ngige stated that the section does not apply to him as he falls under the ‘public officer’ category in the constitution.
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The constitution is the grand norm – the biggest and heaviest of all the laws. Section 137 has given areas of qualifications for presidential candidates. The constitution says public officers should resign one month to election,” he said.
“The issue now is ‘is the minister a public servant’? Yes, I’m a public servant. Go to schedule 5, you’ll see me listed there – ministers, commissioners, governors, vice-president, president and heads of ministerial bodies.
“They listed all of us and gave certain things you should not do, because as a public officer, you cannot take two jobs that have executive positions and receive salaries on them; you cannot do business or trade or be a contractor; that area says you can only do farming as a public officer, and inhibits me and others from operating foreign accounts. A public officer is a public servant.”
