Oyo Assembly summons OYSIEC boss over 2018 council poll

By Yinka  Adeniran, Ibadan

Oyo State House of Assembly has summoned the Executive Secretary, Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC) and other relevant schedule officers to give account of the commission’s activities and finances in relation to the conduct of the May 12, 2018 local government election.

The concerned OYSIEC officials are to appear before the House on February 18.

The Assembly said the appearance should be preceded by the officials submitting the commission’s accounts and relevant documents for scrutiny to the Clerk of the House on or before February 11.

According to the motion presented by Chief Whip Mr. Hakeem Adedibu, the Assembly will be scrutinising documents pertaining to payment of non-refundable sums as stipulated by Section 10 (e) of the OYSIEC law, 1999 and accounts of the payment for nomination form stipulated in schedule 2, Section 4 (3) (a) and (b) of OYSIEC Law, 1999.

Adedibu said the scrutiny became imperative in view of “a lot of confusions on the May 2018 local government election that were not clarified when the OYSIEC appeared before the House during the immediate past budget defence session.”

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Pointing to evidences of indictments of OYSIEC during its budget defence, Adedibu held that the invitation of the concerned officials was for them to give clarifications on issues relating to the conduct of the election in May 2018 into local governments and local council development areas.

He added that the motion was premised on the Assembly acting in consonance with Section 128 of the nation’s 1999 constitution (as amended) which conferred the legislature with the power to conduct investigations into any matter or thing with respect to which it has power to make laws.

But, in a counter argument to the Assembly’s move to scrutinise the accounts of OYSIEC, Mr. Seyi Adisa representing Afijio Constituency argued that the since the issue of OYSIEC was in court, the discussion on the floor of the Assembly was prejudicial.