BVAS: INEC Postpones Governorship, National Assembly Election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has postponed the states governorship and national assembly elections, earlier scheduled to hold Saturday February March 11, 2023.

VerseNews Nigeria reports that the postponement was confirmed in a press release signed by the commission’s chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu made available on Wednesday March 8, 2023.

According to the statement, INEC had postponed the election date because of the Presidential Election Tribunal (EPT) on the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used for the Presidential election held on 25 February 2023.

This Online News Media reported that the Appeal Court on Wednesday ruling gave INEC the permission to reconfigure the BVAS machines which were used for the presidential election held on Saturday, February 25, 2023.

DON’T MISS: Appeal Court Grants INEC Permission To Reconfiguration BVAS

Recall that the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi through the party’s lead counsel, Chief Onyechi Ikpeazu had approached the court to stop the commission from reconfiguring the BVAS machines in order not to tamper with sensitive materials and data needed to prove his case of rigging at the tribunal.

The court which ruled in favour of INEC ordered that the data from the Presidential and National Assembly elections should be backed up and a certified True copies of the backed data of the BVAS made available to the political parties.

The statement in part reads “While the ruling of the Tribunal makes it possible for the Commission to commence the preparation of the VAS for the Governorship and State Assembly elections, it has come far too late for the reconfiguration to be concluded. 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 18 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.

“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 the Smart Card Readers.”

See copy of statement below: