The Independent National Electoral Commission has finally issued an official statement on its postponement of the governorship and House of Assembly elections initially schedule for Saturday, March 11.
The National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, announced in a statement on Wednesday night that the election will not hold on March 11th as earlier scheduled.
It stated that the gubernatorial election will now take place on the 18th of March, 2023 and added that campaigns would continue until midnight Thursday, 16th March 2023.
According to Okoye, “The 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 the 25th of February 2023 and then to reconfigure them for the governorship and state house of assembly election.
“This has been the practice for all elections, including the period when the Commission was using the smart card readers.”
INEC added that it is not against litigants inspecting election materials, adding that it will continue to grant all litigants access to election materials that they require to pure their cases in court.
The official press release:
