The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has postponed the governorship and state assembly elections scheduled to hold on March 11 by one week.
The elections will now hold on March 18, 2023.
The announcement was made late Wednesday night in a press release set to be issued by the Commission shortly.
It was also confirmed by one of the State Resident Electoral Commissioners who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity.
Lagos Panorama reports that the electoral commission had earlier on Wednesday convinced the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to vary its order granting the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, and that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, permission to inspect the election materials used for the just-concluded February 25 presidential election on the premise that it had to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines for the conduction of the governorship and State Assembly elections on Saturday, March 11, 2023.
It was also earlier reported that the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, and his commissioners were in a closed-door meeting over the governorship election. The meeting commenced at 7pm on Wednesday.
Credible sources in the Commission said that given time constraints, the reconfiguration of the BVAS machines was impossible ahead of the March 11 polls, hence a postponement was on the card to allow INEC prepare adequately.
