The election of governors and local deputies scheduled for Saturday in Nigeria is postponed for a week due to a court decision deemed late, announced Wednesday, March 8 the Electoral Commission (Inec). “The Commission has taken the difficult but necessary decision to reschedule the gubernatorial and local assembly elections, which will now take place on Saturday, March 18, 2023,” she said.
A Nigerian court on Wednesday authorized electoral authorities to reconfigure the machines used during the presidential election, a decision too late “for the reconfiguration to be completed” in time, Inec said in a statement.
The Commission also said it wanted “to have enough time” to save the data stored on the BVAS machines, used during the presidential election on February 25, marred by accusations of “massive fraud” by the opposition.
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Tinubu ballformer governor of Lagos, obtained 8.8 million votes in the race to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, against 6.9 million for Atiku Abubakar, of the main opposition party (PDP), and 6.1 million for Peter Obi, of the Labor Party, surprise candidate of urban and connected youth.
Technical failures
The vote was marked by serious technical failures and numerous delays in the electronic transmission of results, provoking the ire of some voters. The two opponents of Bola Tinubu disputed the results, denouncing “manipulations”.
Earlier Wednesday in the day, justice had rejected the request of Peter Obi and his team to inspect the BVAS machines before their reconfiguration. In its press release, however, the Commission declared that it was not “opposed to the parties to the dispute inspecting the electoral material”. “She will continue to grant all litigants access to the material (…) to pursue their cases in court,” she continued.
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During the presidential election, many Nigerians expected to follow the progressive release of results online, but the online portal was very slow to update. This slowness has caused confusion and anger, although the law does not require electronic results to be published before the official results are announced.
In the past, Nigerian elections have often been marred by suspicions of fraud and vote buying.
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With AFP