Photo: Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, INEC boss
Breaking: INEC shifts governorship, state assembly polls to March 18
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has postponed the governorship and state house of assembly elections earlier scheduled for Saturday, March 11, to March 18.
Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner for Voter Education, made this known in a statement issued on Wednesday night.
Okoye explained that the commission’s decision was informed by the ruling by Wednesday’s Appeal Court order on the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used for the February 25 Presidential election.
According to him, the Commission met after the court’s ruling to assess its impact on its preparations for the governorship exercise.
He said, “The Commission has taken the difficult but necessary decision to reschedule the Governorship and State Assembly elections, which will now take place on Saturday 18th March 2023.
Okoye further said that political parties would continue their campaigns until midnight of Thursday, 16th March 2023, precisely 24 hours before the new date for the election.
He further explained that although the court ruling would enable INEC to commence the preparation of the BVAS for the governorship and state assembly elections, it was too late for the reconfiguration to be concluded.
He said, “This decision has not been taken lightly but it is necessary to ensure that there is adequate time to back up the data stored on the over 176,000 BVAS machines from the presidential and National Assembly elections held on 25th February 2023 and then to reconfigure them for the Governorship and State Assembly elections.
“This has been the practice for all elections, including the period when the Commission was using Smart Card Readers.
“However, we wish to reiterate that the Commission is not against litigants inspecting election materials.
“Consequently, it will continue to grant all litigants access to the materials they require to pursue their cases in court.”
INEC under Prof Mahmood is a uselessly corrupt institution….. it’s present action almost confirms the rumor that Mahmood went to Tinubu’s house in Lagos a day or 2 to Presidential and NASS elections on 25/2/2023, collected huge bribe and perfected plans to switch off INEC server or give fictitious password to INEC staff so as to make it impossible to upload election results real time. This wicked action of Mahmood will witch hunt him and his family forever….he can’t get away with it unhurt.