The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has Postpones Governorship and Houses of Assembly Elections which was scheduled to hold on Saturday 11, March to Saturday 18, March 2023. Read the full details.
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the process of re configuring the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) ahead of the governorship and state assembly elections now rescheduled 18, March 2023 as an official date.
You may ask why re configuring BVAS?
The court of appeal on Wednesday, reject an application by Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), to stop INEC from reconfiguring the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) ahead of the governorship and state assembly elections.
Following the INEC statement on Wednesday signed by Festus Okoye, The INEC national commissioner and chairman, information and voter education committee, said 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.
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“As a result, the commission has decided to reschedule the Governorship and State Assembly elections, which will now take place on Saturday, March 18, 2023. This was a difficult but necessary decision. As a result of this decision, campaigns will last until midnight on March 16, 2023, or 24 hours before the new election date, according to the statement.
“This decision has not been made lightly, but it is necessary to give enough time for the over 176,000 BVAS machines to be reconfigured for the Governorship and State Assembly elections after backing up the data from the Presidential and National Assembly elections held on February 25, 2023.
“This has been the standard procedure for all elections, even when the Commission used the Smart But again, the Commission does not object to litigants looking over election materials. It will therefore continue to provide all litigants with access to the information they need to pursue their cases in court.
We want to reassure all candidates and political parties that the information from the Presidential and National Assembly elections will be stored and accessible in INEC cloud facilities, including the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV).
Political parties are eligible to request Certified True Copies of the BVAS’s backend data. Additionally, interested parties will still be able to access the BVAS results on IReV. We appreciate the patience of Nigerians and friends of Nigeria as we work through these difficult problems and navigate these trying times.
Obi requested in a court application that the INEC be prohibited from altering the data stored on the BVAS machines until the proper inspection is carried out and certified true copies (CTC) of them issued.
On Friday, Obi and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP obtained permission from the court to access all the private documents used by the INEC to carry out the election that was held on February 25.However, INEC submitted a request to change the court’s orders.
Each voting unit has a unique BVAS machine that must be set up for the upcoming elections, according to Tanimu Inuwa, counsel for the INEC.
It would be extremely challenging, he claimed, for INEC to reconfigure the 176,000 BVAS for the election.
Additionally, Inuwa noted that since all data will be transferred from the BVAS to the commission’s backend server, there won’t be any information lost.
Accordingly, approving this application would impede progress and interfere with the conduct of the elections, he had said.
The court, which serves as both the presidential election petitions tribunal and ruled on Obi and LP’s request, refused to prevent INEC from reconfiguring the BVAS, stating that doing so would amount to tying the commission’s hands.