The 2023 presidential election would hold on February 18, 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed.
The Chairman of the commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this, yesterday.
In his goodwill message at the inauguration of the special ad-hoc committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution, the INEC chairman told members of the House of Representatives that there are about 855 days left for the next general election.
The boss of the electoral umpire also described the electoral process in Nigeria, as too anachronistic, cumbersome, and expensive. He called on the House to expedite action on the review process to effect key reforms in the electoral system.
Yakubu said, “There must be a way either by an amendment to the Electoral Act or the Constitution to give effect to the Electoral Offences Tribunal. You can’t have a flourishing democracy in which laws are violated with impunity and nothing happens. So, there must be a mechanism by which this must be addressed.
“Our elections are too manual, too expensive, too cumbersome. Too archaic. The law says we must write the results manually; collate them manually from the unit level to the wards to the local governments, to the state, and the national in terms of a presidential election. The encumbrance of the deployment of full technology in elections should be removed.
“Let me remind this meeting that, before the 2019 general election, the national election was fixed on February 18, 2023. That means that from today to the 2023 general elections, we have exactly 855 days.
“I am not reminding members of the National Assembly that their tenures will soon come to end. But the truth is that there has to be a certainty. So, between now and the next general elections is 855 days. So, you have very little time for the Constitution amendment”, Yakubu added.
