The schedules Presidentiaal and National Assembly elections will no longer hold today, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said.
The elections are moved to February 23.
It was one of the decisions reached early today in a crunch talk between between INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu and 12 national commissioners in Abuja, according to sources close to the meeting.
Professor Yakubu will be briefing the media later today on the decision, amidst reports of logistics problems faced by the commission.
The meeting, which began Friday evening, was still in progress up till 1.30 a.m.
Rotimi Oyekanmi, the chief press secretary to the INEC chairman told newsmen that the decision of the meeting will be communicated later today and that some decision about the election had been reached.
“I can confirm to you that the INEC Chairman and the 12 national commissioners are in the meeting.
” Decisions have been taken and you will be addressed later,” Oyekanmi said.
Presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled to take place throughout the country today, while governorship and state assembly elections will take place on 2 March.
The national elections are expected to hold at 119,973 polling units across the country while collation of results will take place in 8,809 Registration Areas or Wards, 774 Local Government Areas and 36 States and the FCT.
It will not be the first time that the commission would postpone a scheduled general election.
In 2015, the presidential election was shifted from February 14 to March 28th, 2015; while the governorship and assembly elections scheduled for 28 February were shifted to 11 April.
“Following a careful review of the implementation of its logistics and operational plan and the determination to conduct free, fair and credible elections, the commission came to the conclusion that proceeding with the elections as scheduled is no longer feasible,” he said.
“Consequently, the commission has decided to reschedule the Presidential and National Assembly Elections to Saturday, 23 February 2019.
“Furthermore, the Governorship, State House of Assembly and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council Elections is rescheduled to Saturday 9th March 2019. This will afford the Commission the opportunity to address identified challenges in order to maintain the quality of our elections.
“This was a difficult decision for the Commission to take, but necessary for the successful delivery of the elections and the consolidation of our democracy.”
He announced that the commission will meet key stakeholders to update them on the development at 2pm on Saturday.
TheCable reports that INEC had summoned stakeholders to an emergency meeting on Friday night following logistics problem in some states.
In Ekiti state, electoral materials had not arrived some areas as of 9pm. There were also issues in Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Taraba and Rivers.
In 2011, the national assembly elections were postponed because of insufficient materials shortly after voting had commenced nationwide.
Four years later, elections were moved by six weeks to allow the military tackle the Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east, although many thought it was because the incumbent government was afraid of losing.
