Following a meeting of its executives on Wednesday evening, INEC announced that the election could no longer take place on March 11 due to a logistical crisis caused by the configuration and transportation of BVAS.
“The elections were postponed to allow an additional week for preparations,” an official with knowledge of the meeting said.
The commission had earlier today persuaded the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal to change its order granting Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP permission to inspect the presidential election materials because needed to reconfigure the BVAS in preparation for Saturday’s elections.
Despite having four years and a massive N355 billion budget to prepare, the electoral commission has a notorious history of postponing elections at the last minute due to concerns about readiness.
In 2019, the commission led by Mahmood Yakubu announced the postponement of the elections at approximately 2:30 a.m. on the scheduled election day.
Nigerians had hoped that Mr. Yakubu would have learned from his 2019 experience and be better equipped to manage the 2023 elections with a larger budget and more advanced BVAS technology.
In February 2015, the then-chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Attahiru Jega, shifted the presidential and governorship elections by one month.