The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has postponed the governorship and House of Assembly elections in states scheduled for Saturday March 11, 2023.
Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections will now holds on Saturday, March 18, 2023.
The rescheduling came about 2 days to the election that was fixed last year by the electoral body INEC.
The Governorship elections will hold in 28 States of the federation while the state assembly elections will take place in all the 36 states across the country except the federal capital Territory Abuja.
INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Barrister Festus Okoye announced the postponement
a few minutes after 12.00am
Thursday morning.
Okoye in the late night statement said the decision to shift the poll was made at a meeting later in the day, held to assess the impact of ruling earlier in the
day by the Presidential Election
Petition Tribunal (PEPT) on the
reconfiguration of the Bimodal
Voter Accreditation System (BVAS)
used for the Presidential election
held on 25th February 2023.
Confirming the shift in election
date, Okoye said, “Nigerians would
recall that on 3rd March, 2023, the
Presidential EPT had given an
ex- parte order for some political
parties to inspect materials used
for the Presidential election,
including the forensic inspection
of over 176,000 BVAS used in the
election which are located in INEC
LGA offices across the country.
“The Commission approached
the Tribunal to reconsider the
order, given that the BVAS Systems
were to be deployed for the
Governorship and State Assembly
elections and that the lack of a
clearly defined timeframe for
the inspection could disrupt the
Commission’s ability to conduct
the outstanding elections.