Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission (OGSIEC) has cancelled the payment of nomination fees for Chairmanship and Councillorship candidates.
The Local Government elections is expected to hold on the July 24 , 2021.
Timenews reports that OGSIEC had earlier declared the payment of non-refundable deposits of N200,000 and N100,000 for chairmanship and councillorship candidates respectively.
OGSIEC Chairman, Babatunde Osibodu, made the disclosure in a statement on Saturday saying that the Commission was inundated with calls for the cancellation based on a particular Court judgment.
He said, “We did promise that we will revert our decision if any of the political parties was able to provide the said judgment; unfortunately, none of them was able to come up with the judgement until recently.
“We took it upon ourselves after the Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) strike was called off to request a copy of the judgement from the Chief Registrar of the Ogun State High Court. We have now received a CTC of the judgement in the case of the National Conscience Party of Nigeria (NCP) and others, versus OGSIEC and Attorney-General of Ogun State as delivered in May 2004 by Hon. Justice G.O Soremi to the effect that Sections 14,15 and 16 of the Ogun State Electoral Law of 2007 contravene Section 7 (4), 106 and 107 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As amended).
“Consequently, the Commission has decided to cancel payment of nomination fees as earlier announced,” Osibodu stated.
While saying the commission has not collected money from any of the political parties or candidates prior to this latest decision, the Chairman assured of the electoral body’s resolve to be neutral, fair, impartial, even-handed and transparent in the conduct of the election.
