Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission (OGSIEC) yesterday disclosed that it had screened 903 councillorship candidates to contest the October 8, 2016 local council election in the state.

The commission, which concluded the screening in Abeokuta, the state capital yesterday, said 17 political parties took part in the exercise.

The chairman of the screening committee, Mr. Mutiu Agboke, told journalists that apart from misleading information on the data forms of some candidates, 269 candidates have no records of tax payment in the last three years.

The chairman who insisted the intention was not to disqualify candidates noted that the commission was already addressing the issue of many candidates with irregularities.

He explained: “What the commission did, as we have on our time table, was to commence the screening of councillorship candidates, which we did without any hitch. Virtually, all the candidates of 17 political parties participated in the exercise.”

“So far, we have 903 candidates contesting the election and we have others whose names are still pending because of one irregularity or the other,” Agboke added.

He said: “On the day of the screening, we discovered that there are lots of irregularities in the information they supplied in their data form.