Chairman of the Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission, OGISEC, Babatunde Osibodu, has admitted that state electoral commissions need reforms for optimal performance and conduct of credible polls.
He said necessary reforms are the best options rather than the agitation for the transfer of the conduct of Local Government elections to the Independent Electoral Commission INEC).
Osibodu explained that while INEC still struggles with the workload saddled it, the LG elections would become a burden to it.
He spoke during a media parliament organized by the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Ogun State Council held at the council’s secretariat in Abeokuta on Tuesday.
Recalling the controversies surrounding the recently concluded Edo State elections, the Chairman insisted that a devolution of power to the federating state was preferable to centralization.
He said, ” We do not want to go back to centralizing everything, we need to devolve powers to the federating state.
” We saw what happened in the Edo elections, I’m not saying whether the right person or the wrong person won but we have seen the controversy that trailed the elections.
“Even with the controversy that trailed the 2023 elections, many people already said that INEC itself should be unbundled, that there is too much heavy load on it and you now want to burden it with local government elections when it is still struggling with the one that it has been saddled with.
He acknowledged that the local government elections in itself are not flawless and emphasized the need for reform in a number of areas.
” The bath water may be dirty, but the baby should not be thrown out with it. We can clean up the baby and make sure it looks better and feels better. We can reform the electoral system; I will be the first to admit that it is not perfect, and I will be the first to admit that there are several areas where we need reforms, and those reforms are possible. But I will not say local government elections should go back to INEC.
Speaking on the state’s forthcoming November 16 local government election, he disclosed that eight political parties have been registered and just two have submitted the complete names of their candidates.
The chairman, however, asked all political parties to ensure that their party agents are present at every polling unit and reassured that he is working to hold free, fair, credible, and transparent elections.