Nigeria postpones elections to decide on new rulers after a courtroom ruling

Nigeria’s Electoral Fee has delayed Saturday’s election to pick out new governors by per week, saying it wants extra time to reconfigure the digital machines that have been on the coronary heart of final month’s disputed presidential vote.

Conservative elections will now be held in 28 of the nation’s 36 states now on March 18. The Conservatives are among the many most influential politicians in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economic system and largest oil producer.

The Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) stated late Wednesday that it wanted extra time to reconfigure the dual-mode voter accreditation system (BVAS) that makes use of fingerprints and facial recognition to establish voters and transmit outcomes from the polling station.

The identical BVAS mechanisms have been used throughout final month’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

“This determination was not taken frivolously however it’s vital to make sure that there may be adequate time to again up the info saved on greater than 176,000 BVAS gadgets from the presidential and Nationwide Meeting elections held on February 25, 2023 after which reconfigure them for the sake of security,” the fee stated in a press release. Governance and state meeting elections.

Observers from the European Union, the Commonwealth and different our bodies reported a variety of issues throughout final month’s election, together with failures in methods designed to stop vote-tampering, and criticized the Impartial Electoral Fee (INEC) for poor planning and delaying voting. However they didn’t declare fraud.

(Reuters)