Over 40 political officeholders have resigned their appointments to vie for the chairmanship of their respective local government councils on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the October 26, LG polls in Kwara State.

Twenty five officeholders including special advisers, assistants, local government youth employment coordinators, as well as local government political appointees tendered their resignations over the weekend in compliance with the directive of the PDP leadership that all political office holders interested in the chairmanship or councillorship seats to resign latest by  Friday.

Daily Trust gathered that the list of political appointees who have relinquished their positions rose to over 40 during the week as more officeholders complied with the directive given by the PDP leader and former Governor Bukola Saraki.

Out of over 40 who have resigned, 23 of them were on state appointments while the remaining were local government appointees, according to insiders who confided in our correspondent.

The aspirants who it was gathered, are over 100 would contest the PDP primaries for the 16 local government areas of the state.

The state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Tunji Moronfoye confirmed to Daily Trust that "quite a few number of them" have resigned to pursue their political career, adding, "It goes to show you that this election is going to be free and fair and nobody is an anointed candidate".

Also speaking with our correspondent yesterday, a core loyalist of Saraki and Chairman of Local Government Service Commission (LGSC), Alhaji Sulaiman Kayode Yusuf explained that resignation of the political appointees was in line with the election guideline that aspirants should resign three months to the election.

"All aspirants who are holding political offices should have resigned by July as stipulated by the election guideline and constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria. The leader just reminded them because some of them did not know they are to resign", he said.