Decision 2023: Accreditation, Voting commences in gov’ship, State Assembly polls

Accreditation of voters and voting has commenced across Nigeria as citizens go to the polls to vote in the presidential and national assembly elections.

This will be the 5th quadrennial election to be held since the end of military rule in 1999.

Over 93 million Nigerian voters are electing new state Governors and Legislators today, Saturday 18th March.

The elections were formerly scheduled for March 11 by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, timetable, but were postponed due to the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System introduced, BVAS.

Local and International observers are also monitoring the conduct of the election across states.

In Oyo state, INEC adhoc staff arrived in some polling units at 7:37am and commenced arrangement of election materials.

INEC officials arrived early at a polling unit in Akure, Ondo state. At Saint Peter’s demonstration school in Akure, voting materials were distributed as soon as possible.

In Lagos State, south-west Nigeria, voting materials arrived at some of the polling units early.

TVC News correspondents, who visited polling units in Ikeja and Ifako observed that accreditation had already started.

Residents at Ifako were seen queued up in orderly manner while officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were seen giving on final instructions on election processes.

In Cross River State, south-south Nigeria, election materials were also reported to have arrived at some of the polling units where potential voters had been waiting patiently for accreditation to begin.

In Edo State, accreditation started early and all was reported to be going orderly.

In Imo State, it was mixed reactions. While electoral materials arrived some polling centres as early as 8:00am local time, some polling units were still waiting for the arrival of INEC officials as at 9:45am.