INEC Postpones Election by 1 Week
The governorship and state assembly elections that were supposed to take place on March 11 have been postponed by the Independent National Election Commission by one week.
The new date for the elections is March 18, 2023.
The choice was confirmed by a state resident electoral commissioner who talked to our correspondent under the condition of anonymity.
Following a meeting of its executives on Wednesday night, INEC said that the election could no longer proceed as planned, citing a logistics dilemma related to BVAS setup and transportation. The exercise had originally been scheduled to take place on March 11.
As of the time this story was submitted, the meeting was still going on at the INEC headquarters in Abuja. A senior INEC official informed Diasporainfo that a statement regarding the postponement was being prepared.
On the basis that it needed to reconfigure the BVAS for the conduct of the elections this Saturday, the commission earlier today persuaded the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal to modify its order granting Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP permission to inspect the presidential election materials.
Despite having four years and a sizable N355 billion budget to prepare, the electoral commission has an infamous reputation of postponing elections at the last minute due to preparation issues.
On the same Saturday as the elections that were supposed to take place in 2019, the commission led by Mahmood Yakubu announced the delay of the polls at roughly 2:30 a.m.
Nigerians had believed that Mr. Yakubu would have learned from his mistakes in 2019 and would be better equipped to manage the 2023 elections with the help of a larger budget and cutting-edge BVAS technology.
When the presidential and governorship elections were moved by one month in February 2015 at the request of the then-INEC head, Attahiru Jega, a similar incident took place.
This came after Mr. Jega, who oversaw the electoral commission in 2011, repeatedly postponed the presidential election.
