(INEC) The Independent National Electoral Commission postponed the elections for governorship and state assembly by one week to reconfigure the BVAS machines used for the presidential election.
A Nigerian court has ruled in favor of INEC’s decision to reconfigure BVAS for state elections, dismissing Labor Party’s objections.
INEC has assured Nigerians that BVAS data will remain secure and candidates will be given more time to campaign due to the delay.
Elections for governor and state house of assembly, slated for March 11, 2023, have been postponed a week to March 18, 2023, announced the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
INEC said the reason for the delay was the commencement of reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25 to allow them to be used for the state elections.
With BVAS, voters’ names can be cross-checked against the voters’ list and authenticated voters using their fingerprints or facial features.
It has a camera that captures images of the results at the constituency level and uploads them to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal for citizens to view during the election for each constituency.
The postponement comes after the Presidential Electoral Court gave INEC the go-ahead to reconfigure the BVAS used for the presidential election.
The court ruled unanimously by a three-judge panel that if it prevents INEC from reconfiguring BVAS, it will affect the upcoming governorship and state assembly elections.
Dismissing the objections raised against INEC’s move to reconfigure all BVAS, the court noted that INEC had assured that the accreditation details in the BVAS would not be tampered with and could be easily stored and retrieved from the back-end server that was accredited.
Though the ruling came too late for INEC to complete the reconfiguration, they have assured Nigerians that they are backing up the presidential election data before starting the reconfiguration process.
With this latest postponement, candidates for the gubernatorial election could continue their campaign until Thursday, March 16, 2023, 24 hours before the new election date.
INEC said Wednesday’s ruling came “too late for them to complete the reconfiguration” but assured Nigerians that they were backing up the presidential election data before starting the reconfiguration process.
The commission added that with this latest reprieve, gubernatorial election candidates can continue their campaign until Thursday, March 16, 2023, 24 hours before the new election date.