The sitting of the Edo State Joint Transition committee set up by the outgoing administration of Godwin Obaseki and incoming administration of Governor-Elect, Sen. Monday Okpebholo, was yesterday deadlocked.
The 24- member APC committee led by former deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu, stayed away from the meeting, following the failure of the government side transition committee to release specific documents it requested to enable them study hours before yesterday’s meeting.
Governor Godwin Obaseki had in June, 2024, set up a 20-man transition committee headed by Secretary to the Edo State government, Joseph Eboigbe, who last week at the inaugural meeting of the joint committee, made a power-point presentation, where he praised Obaseki for keeping clean financial records which hard copies he promised to make available to Dr. Pius Odubu-led Transition Committee.
But at yesterday’s sitting, only few Secretariat staff of the government committee were seen while the APC members were absent.
Giving reason for the absence of members of the committee set up by APC and governor-elect, the Secretary to the Committee, Hon. Patrick Ikhariale said they had made it clear to the government committee to avail them advance copies of document 24 hours before any meeting, adding that in spite of the request, the document they made available did not meet their requisition because they demanded specific documents .
“The truth remains that we have had series of communications both oral and written. Some of them are well documented. No meeting could have been proposed for today (yesterday) because in our letters to them we have insisted that anything we want to do they must send to us advance copies of whatever we want to do 24 hours before the meeting.
“Be that as it may, we made requisitions yesterday that all the documents they have supplied so far do not meet our expectations because we asked certain specific questions or required certain documents that are to give us enough understanding of certain things.
“At the end of the day, it was like they were going to change their approach because it is obvious that whatever they brought to us would have been written well ahead of the transition committee.
“And whatever we are asking of is in line with best standard practice globally. We’re not asking of anything new, no rocket science about it. It is a question of asking questions in some cases relating to some monetary issues, expenditure, what’s left here, what has been done, may be grants, NGOs and what. There are so many others. We have twenty three areas of interest which we forwarded.
“What has been supplied to us so far to the best of our knowledge and what we can readily see here is showcasing “the achievement of the Obaseki regime for the number of years that they have stayed in government.
“That’s not the focus of the request we made. There’s no doubt that the submission they have made so far falls short of what we expected. We’re forwarding a letter to them giving them time that anytime they’re able to forward the expected document we have the joint meeting and interaction”, Ikhariale said.
