Elections for governor and state assembly are postponed to March 18 by – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has decided to push out Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections until March 18, 2023, barring any further delays.

The state elections were originally slated to take place on March 11; INEC’s decision comes about three days before that date.

A source in INEC informed THE WHISTLER that the postponement is owing to the inability of the commission to swiftly undertake reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) equipment deployed during the February 25 presidential election to enable their usage in the state elections.

INEC was previously prohibited from altering the data stored on the BVAS devices until a proper inspection had been carried out and Certified True Copies (CTC) had been given to candidates contesting the results of the presidential election.

Festus Okoye, the commission’s spokesperson, could not be reached on his phone, thus attempts to elicit a response from him were unsuccessful.