Samson Itodo, the executive director of Yiaga Africa, has opined that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), postpone the March 11th governorship election, owing to the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, or BVAS.
This was made known by Itodo, who spoke during a Channels Television interview on Wednesday.
He was responding to INEC’s appeal in the Court of Appeal to reconfigure the BVAS device used during the February 25th presidential and National Assembly elections.
According to Itodo, setting a new date for the forthcoming governorship elections would be in the best interest of all stakeholders.
He clarified that it is still within the Electoral Act to move up the state’s governorship elections by at least two weeks.
“We are already in a difficult situation, and to prevent further logistical issues during the governorship elections and to the extent that it will undermine the integrity of the process.
“Regardless of the ruling today (Wednesday), I think it is in the best interest to reschedule the election, whatever the court says, stakeholders should adopt the ruling.
“What is happening is the consequence and the cost of broken trust; if everything had gone well in the first round of the election, perhaps the parties would have approached this differently. Two options are available to INEC if you reconfigure the subject of that process to public scrutiny; Move the election by a week or two weeks. INEC also needs time to reconfigure all the BVAS; three days is insufficient for the commission to configure the machine for the governorship election,” he said.
The Labour Party’s request for a physical inspection of the BVAS machines was set for hearing on Wednesday by the Court of Appeal.
The state’s gubernatorial election is scheduled for March 11, 2023.
