NEC postpones governorship and state assembly elections to March 18

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reached a decision to postpone the governorship and state assembly elections. 

The elections, initially scheduled to hold on March 11, has been postponed to March 18, 2023. 

The postponement is due to the inability of the commission to promptly commence reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines utilized during the February 25 presidential election to enable their use in the state elections. 

INEC was earlier restrained from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies (CTC) issued to candidates who are challenging the outcome of the presidential election. 

The commission had convinced the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal to vary its order granting Peter Obi of the Labour Party and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar permission to inspect the election materials on the premise that it had to reconfigure the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) for the conduction of the polls this Saturday.