Hours after the court gave the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the order to reconfigure BVAS machine ahead of the March 11 gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections, the commission came out to reveal that they have decided to shift the election.
In a press statement released and posted by INEC on their verified Facebook Page, the commission highlighted the reasons why they shifted the election.
INEC said that they thought it would be wise to shift the election so that they will have sufficient time to back up the data stored on the over 176,000 BVAS machines from the Presidential and National Assembly Election.
Another reason they gave for shifting the election is that since the court has granted the Presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Gregory Obi and that of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu the permission to inspect election materials, the timeframe for the inspection could disrupt their ability to conduct outstanding elections (Gubernatorial and House of Assembly).
They also said that the BVAS can only be activated on the specific date and time of an election, and that since they were used for the previous election, they will need enough time to reconfigure them before reusing them.
Recall that Peter Obi’s application was rejected by the court when he requested for an order to prevent INEC from reconfiguring BVAS.
Now that the election has been shifted, there will be enough time to back up all the data and information contained on the BVAS.
