By Adekola Afolabi
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The chairman, Ondo State Independent Electoral Commission, ODIEC, Prof Yomi Dinakin, said the commission would soon conduct elections into Local Government Chairmanship and Councillorship positions in the 18 councils.
He disclosed this while speaking with journalists shortly after defending the commission’s budget for 2019 before the House of Assembly Committee on Finance and Appropriation.
According to him, budgetary provision has been made for the conduct of the council polls
The Chairman said he would soon call a stakeholders’ meeting to discuss the modality for the conduct of the local government election this year as soon as possible.
Prof Dinakin had last year November announced the indefinite postponement of the chairmanship/councillorship polls earlier fixed for December 1, 2018.
He cited failure of the INEC in the state to provide the commission with the updated version of the voters’ register as main reason for the postponement.
He emphasised that INEC refused to provide updated version of the voters’ register despite continued requests for it by ODIEC, saying that the commission could not go on with the election with incomplete voters’ register released by INEC earlier last year.
He assured that the election would be held very soon at a date to be announced by the commission.
“If you would recall I told Ondo State people last year that our major problem was with respect to voters’ register. Last year, we were working to conduct the election but when it became obvious that in terms of time frame certain supporting information and things were not forthcoming, that was why we had to postpone the election”, the chairman stressed.
The ODIEC boss disclosed that the commission would redesign its time-table and proceed to conduct the election as soon as possible this year.
