Edo: Transition committee meeting stalls over document disputes

The meeting of the Edo State Joint Transition Committee was stalled on Tuesday, following disagreements on some documents necessary for the sitting.

The joint committee consists of members of the outgoing administration of Governor Godwin Obaseki and that of Governor-elect, Monday Okpebholo.

At the opening session last week, the Secretary to the State Government, Joseph Eboigbe, during a PowerPoint presentation, praised Obaseki for keeping clean financial records.

He promised to make available soft and hard copies of all records to the Dr Pius Odubu-led transition committee.

However, at Tuesday’s sitting only a few staff of the government committee were seen while the APC members were absent.

The Secretary of the APC transition committee, Patrick Ikhariale, when contacted, said members had made it clear to the committee to avail them advance copies of documents 24 hours before any meeting.

He added that the documents the Obaseki team made available did not meet their demands.

“The truth remains that we have had a series of communications, both oral and written. Some of them are not well documented.

“No meeting could have been proposed for today because, in our letters to them, we insisted that they must send us advance copies of whatever we want to do 24 hours before the meeting.

“We told them yesterday (Monday) that all the documents they have supplied so far do not meet our expectations. We asked specific questions or required certain documents that were to give us enough understanding of certain things.

“It was like they were going to change their approach. It is obvious that whatever they brought to us would have been written well ahead of the transition committee,” he said.

Ikhariale further stated “Whatever we are asking of is in line with best standard practice globally. We’re not asking for anything new.

“It is a question of asking questions in some cases relating to monetary issues, expenditure, what’s left here, what has been done, maybe grants, NGOs and what have you. We have 23 areas of interest which we forwarded to them.

“What has been supplied to us so far, to the best of our knowledge and what we can readily see here, is showcasing the achievements of the Obaseki regime for the number of years that he has 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 to give them time to forward the expected document so that the meeting can resume.”

When contacted, the Commissioner for Communication and Orientation, Chris Nehikhare, said the APC committee was making inquiries which, he said, was outside their mandate of transiting to them what the outgoing government had done.

He said some of their inquiries would be contained in the handover notes of the governor.

Nehikhare said, “We are a transition committee and not an inquisitive committee that they are trying to make themselves look like. The global practice is to present what we have done, where we are and what has not been done.

“They claim we are only showcasing what we have done, but these are the same people who said Obaseki did not do anything.

“We are supposed to transmit all that we have done and yet to do to them and some of the other details will be in the handover notes of the governor.

“During our first joint meeting, we did announce how we will do the presentations to them and some other questions they are asking are all embedded in these presentations.”