NIGERIA’S electoral agency said yesterday it had postponed a weekend governorship election by one week following a court decision over the machines used in voting.

The so-called BVAS machines are at the centre of a legal dispute over last month’s highly contested presidential election which Nigeria’s ruling APC party candidate won, but the opposition claims was marred by massive tampering.

The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party said huge delays in voting in the February 25 presidential ballot and problems in uploading the election results through the BVAS need to be investigated.

A court earlier yesterday had rejected an opposition demand to halt the reconfiguring of BVAS so their teams could check for forensic evidence of ballot rigging.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) said in a statement the court process had delayed its preparations for the Saturday vote for state governors.

“While the ruling of the tribunal makes it possible for the commission to commence the preparation of the BVAS for the governorship and state assembly elections, it has come far too late for the reconfiguration,” Inec said.

It said the vote would take place on Saturday, March 18.

The candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, who is a former Lagos governor, won 8.8 million votes in the race to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, with the PDP’s Atiku Abubakar at 6.9 million and surprise third challenger Labour Party’s Peter Obi at 6.1 million.

In a bid to improve transparency, Inec introduced BVAS for the first time at the national level as well as its IReV, an online database for uploading results from local polling stations.

But some voters and opposition parties said huge delays in voting and failures in the system when uploading tallies allowed for ballot manipulation and disparities from what was counted locally. – AFP, March 9, 2023.