- Atiku In Closed-Door Meeting With IBB In Minna
The Independent National Electoral Commission has postponed the governorship and state assembly elections till March 18.
The exercise was previously scheduled to hold on March 11, but INEC, citing a logistics crisis stemming from BVAS configuration and transportation, said the election could not hold again as scheduled.
It was learnt that the postponement was due to the inability of the commission to commence the re-configuration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used for the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, to enable their use for the state elections.
Authoritative sources told Daily Trust that the commission management is currently holding a meeting, where it was considering either March 18 or March 25 for the elections.
It was however learnt that March 18 was chosen.
“You know that the BVAS re-configuration would take three or four days and since they would all be moved to the headquarters in Abuja, the machines would be re-configured and deployed to the various states and finally to the polling units,” one of the officials said.
Details later..
Atiku In Closed-Door Meeting With IBB In Minna
In a different development, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the February 25 elections, Atiku Abubakar on Wednesday paid an unscheduled visit to the former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (retired).
The former vice president who arrived at the Minna International airport around 11 am in the morning was received by the former governor of Niger State, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu. He then moved straight to the uphill mansion of the elder statesman in Minna.
Channels Television gathered that the meeting between the duo lasted for over one hour.
According to findings, the visit is not unconnected with the just concluded elections in the country and to make official complaints about the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s inability to conduct a free, fair, and acceptable election sequel to his rejection and calling for the cancellation of the result.
Also, Atiku Abubakar was in Minna to welcome General Babangida after his return from a foreign medical trip.
Atiku lost to his main rival of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu who polled 8,794,726 votes. He came tops in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states and secured significant numbers in several other states to claim the highest number of votes.
The 76-year-old, who has now run for president six times, got 6,984,520 votes, while the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, who, in less than a year, galvanised young voters in a manner some have described as unprecedented finished the race with 6,101,533.
Both Atiku and Obi are not happy with the outcome of the election and have approached the court to challenge the result.
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