By Dayo Johnson

Akure—THE  Ondo State Independent Electoral Commission, ODEIC,  yesterday insisted that the April 23 local government election in the state would hold as planned.

This came on the heels of the indecision of the main opposition All Progressives Congress on whether to participate or boycott the polls and opted out of the meeting called by the commission.

However, 27 other political parties  attended a stakeholders meeting.

But the chairman of the Commission, Prof Olugbenga Ige said at the meeting that “there would be no postponement or change of date of the forthcoming local government election scheduled to hold on April 23, 2016.

According to the chairman, the commission was committed to conducting a free, fair and credible election.

Ige urged all stakeholders to cooperate with the commission to make the exercise a success.

Representatives of the political parties appealed to the commission to always carry them along in the preparation for the election.

The chairman of the APC, Isaac Kekemeke had earlier said during the Leaders’ Consultative meeting last week that the party lacked confidence in the commission, hence it would boycott the election.

The planned boycott appears to have divided leaders  of the party.

Specifically the party’s   Central Working Committee, CWC, the State Executive Committee, SEC, and the expanded executives are heading for a collision  course with some of its governorship aspirants over the planned boycott.

Last week, the party CWC and SEC met and decided to boycott the election.

But, many of the governorship aspirants at the party’s leaders consultative meeting in Akure, disagreed with the decision of the party leaders to “ single handedly decide to boycott the election without their input”