Ladies and gentlemen, we have not-so-pleasant news for you today. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has postponed the gubernatorial and state assembly elections from March 11 to March 18, 2023.
This is because INEC would need to take their time to manually configure over 176,000 Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines for each polling unit across the country. And that, my friends, ‘takes a lot of work’.
How we imagine INEC officials after reconfiguring 176,000 BVAS machines
But now that these elections have been postponed, what do you need to know?
Campaigns continue until March 16
All party supporters and patriotic citizens are free to continue ‘moving the ministry’ of their preferred candidate — up until midnight of Thursday, March 16, 2023. This is in alignment with the 2022 Electoral Act.
If you get caught after the said date, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
INEC is ready to release election materials for access in court
Recently, two contenders during the presidential elections (Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar) filed ex parte applications. The purpose was to seek permission to access election materials from INEC.
ALSO READ: How To Challenge Election Results in Court
However, INEC was against this, as they insisted that it would disrupt the elections. Rather, in a show of good faith, they assured them that the election materials would still be made available to them if needed in court. But only until after the elections.
But from the same organisation that was accused of electoral fraud during the presidential elections, it’s best one takes this with a pinch of salt.
All results from February 25 elections will be backed up on the cloud
To avoid further backlash on INEC’s failure with election results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), the commission has come out to appeal to all political candidates and parties that all result data will be seen on the IReV.
Political parties can also apply to get certified True copies of backend data on the BVAS. This is just in case there are any trust issues.
Now you know the updates! Citizen promises to give you the full gist of the 2023 gubernatorial elections come March 18! Stay sharp and stay glued to our election results screen! Or join us on WhatsApp.
