The polls have now been rescheduled by one week to March 18, 2023, credible sources in the commission told Daily Trust.
It was learnt that the postponement was due to the inability of the commission to commence the re-configuration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used for the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, to enable their use for the state elections.
Authoritative sources told Daily Trust that the commission management is currently holding a meeting, where it was considering either March 18 or March 25 for the elections. It was however learnt that March 18 was chosen.
“You know that the BVAS re-configuration would take three or four days and since they would all be moved to the headquarters in Abuja, the machines would be re-configured and deployed to the various states and finally to the polling units,” one of the officials said.
This is the third consecutive general elections that will be postponed by INEC.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Court of Appeal granted INEC’s request to reconfigure BVAS for the governorship and state assembly elections.