The gubernatorial and state assemblies elections earlier scheduled for Saturday 11 2023 has been postponed by the Independent National Electoral Commission to March 18.
This development occurred after the Court of Appeal gave a go-ahead to reconfigure Bimodal Voter Accreditation machines.
The decision to postpone elections was taken by the commission at its management meeting in Abuja, on Wednesday.
The meeting, which was presided over by its National Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu started at 7pm and ended at 10pm.
In a statement by its National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye on Wednesday night, INEC said it could not go ahead with the governorship poll as earlier scheduled because it needed time to reconfigure BIVAS machines, which were used for the presidential election on February 25.
The Court of Appeal had earlier on Wednesday granted permission to INEC to reconfigure BIVAS used for the presidential election.
The appellate court panel held that allowing the objections of the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, would amount to “tying the hands of the respondent, INEC.”
Meanwhile, Obi had earlier approached the appellate court where he secured an order restraining the commission from reconfiguring the BVAS used for the election.
This move was made after the declaration of the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Tinubu as the president-elect.
The court handed down the order in the ruling it gave on Friday granting permission to Obi and his Peoples Democratic Party counterpart, Atiku Abubakar to inspect the sensitive materials used for the conduct of the election.
The idea of reconfiguration was also considered after the electoral body in an application asked the court to vary its order restraining it from tampering with the BVAS machines, which it argued, had to be reconfigured for the governorship and state assembly polls.
