Nigeria election commission delays polls for governors by a week

INEC says it wants extra time to reconfigure BVAS machines on the centre of final month’s disputed presidential vote.

INEC officers type and rely ballots in the course of the vote-counting course of at a polling station in Kano on February 25 [Kola Sulaimon/AFP]

Nigeria’s electoral fee says it has postponed by per week the elections to choose new governors, saying it wanted extra time to reconfigure digital machines which are on the centre of a extremely contested presidential vote final month.

Initially due on Saturday, the polls to choose governors in 28 of the nation’s 36 states will now be held on March 18.

The Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) mentioned in a press release late on Wednesday it wanted extra time to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) that makes use of fingerprints and facial recognition to determine voters and transmit outcomes from polling stations.

The identical BVAS machines have been used in the course of the presidential and parliamentary vote on February 25.

“This resolution has not been taken flippantly however it's essential to make sure that there may be satisfactory time to again up the info saved on the over 176,000 BVAS machines from the Presidential and Nationwide Meeting elections … after which to reconfigure them for the Governorship and State Meeting elections,” INEC mentioned.

Observers from the European Union, the Commonwealth and different our bodies reported a variety of issues in the course of the February election, together with failures in techniques designed to stop vote manipulation. They criticised INEC for poor planning and voting delays however they didn't allege fraud.

The candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, who's a former Lagos governor, was declared the winner within the race to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.

He received 8.8 million votes, forward of the contender of the principle opposition Folks’s Democratic Get together (PDP) Atiku Abubakar, at 6.9 million, and third challenger, the Labour Get together’s Peter Obi, at 6.1 million.

The PDP and Labour Get together say big delays in voting within the presidential poll and issues in importing the election outcomes by means of the BVAS have to be investigated.

A courtroom earlier on Wednesday had rejected an opposition demand to halt the reconfiguring of BVAS so their groups might test for forensic proof of poll rigging.