INEC Shifts Guber, Assembly Elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has shifted the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections by seven days. By the shift, the elections, originally scheduled to hold on Saturday, 11 March, will now to hold on 18 March.

INEC made the disclosure on Wednesday night in a statement made available by its National Commissioner for Voter Education, Festus Okoye. 

The move is sequel to a directive by the Presidential Election Tribunal which restrained INEC from tampering with all sensitive materials used in the presidential election as requested by the Labour Party, LP, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar respectively. 

However, INEC’s statements noted that the shift in date became imperative following the need for adequate time to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, ahead of the said elections.

“While the ruling of the Tribunal makes it possible for the Commission to commence the preparation of the BVAS for the Governorship and State Assembly elections, it has come far too late for the reconfiguration to be concluded,” Mr Okoye said in Wednesday’s statement.

“Consequently, 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. By this decision, campaigns will continue until midnight of Thursday 16th March 2023 i.e. 24 hours before the new date for the election.” INEC’s statement reads in part. 

Both candidates approached the Court haven rejected the outcome of the Presidential election in which the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was declared winner. They therefore asked the court to seek permission to inspect the sensitive materials while also restraining INEC from tampering with same. 

On the other hand, INEC countered by asking the court to grant it permission to reconfigure the BVAS, Prelude to the governorship and state assembly elections. 

On Wednesday, the court granted the parties' request to have access to the materials and INEC the permission to reconfigure the BVAS afterwards, following which INEC shifted the elections as it requires a minimum of four days to reconfigure the material.