The Osun State Independent Electoral Commission, OSSIEC, has confirmed that the local government elections scheduled for Saturday, February 22, 2025 will hold as planned. The Commission stated that no litigation currently posed a threat to the conduct of the poll, adding that it had adhered strictly to legal guidelines throughout the process.

The OSSIEC Chairman, Hashim Abioye who made the clarification on Saturday, added that plans by the opposition to frustrate the conduct of the exercise will fail. Abioye revealed that six legal cases had been filed against the commission in various courts, including two appeals stemming from a Federal High Court judgment in November 2022. “The 2022 ruling by the Federal High Court in Osogbo nullified the local government elections conducted that year and removed all elected officials, who were members of the All Progressives Congress (APC),’ he said.

He revealed that one of the appeals against the ruling is still pending judgment, while the second appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in Akure on 13 January, 2025 due to abandonment. “We must clarify that regardless of the pending appeal’s outcome, the Federal High Court’s judgment nullifying the 2022 elections remains valid and subsisting.

When two convictions for the same offense are reversed on appeal, the other conviction remains valid. This shows that the current situation has a solid legal basis,” the chairman of the OSSIEC stated. “As of right now, there is not a court injunction that prohibits the elections’ activity. “The public should stay focused and ignore the lies propagated on social media. “OSSIEC is dedicated to holding credible, lawful, and smooth elections,” he promised.