Commission denies cancelling LG polls in Ondo

By OSAGIE OTABOR, Akure

The Ondo State Independent Electoral Commission (ODIEC) has denied rumours that it has cancelled or aborted conduct of local government elections in the state.

It said the earlier scheduled April 18 date for the conduct of the local elections was no longer feasible because of the upsurge of COVID-19 cases in Nigeria and the need contain its spread.

The Commission said it decided to suspend the local election till the situation on the COVID-19 pandemic improves.

ODIEC Commissioner, Media and Publicity. Rotimi Olorunfemi, who stated this in a press statement issued in Akure said the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and other partners that were supposed to retrain and train its staff and some categories of ad-hoc staff, had shut down their offices expressing their inability to further participate in the training programmes due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Olorunfemi said the 2020 Ondo local elections have not been aborted or cancelled as some mischief makers want the general public to believe.

He explained that rescheduling of the local polls to a date to be announced later was necessitated by the fact that some of the procedures and activities that would lead to the conduct of a very credible election like training of ad-hoc staff, campaigns by political parties, voting and collation of results would be affected by the government COVID-19 directives and policies

According to the statement “The Commission assures of its readiness to kick start the process again within the shortest possible time as soon as there is an improvement in the situation in the country especially in Ondo State as we await further government directives on the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts geared at its curtailment.

“The Commission will at all times obey Government directives on the issue of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With this level of preparedness, the conduct of the 2020 Local Government elections in Ondo State therefore becomes invariably inevitable but at an appropriate date to be announced by the Commission after due consultation with relevant stakeholders and political parties as agreed at a recent meeting.” (The Nation)