NIGERIA’S election commission has postponed voting to choose state governors that was due to take place on March 11.

New governors for 28 of the country’s 36 states will now be elected a week later, on March 18.

In a statement on Wednesday night, Independent National Electoral Commission spokesman Festus Okoye said the delay would allow more time for voting machines used in last month’s presidential and legislative elections to be reconfigured and deployed for the forthcoming vote.

The gubernatorial vote is part of Nigeria’s general elections, including last month’s presidential vote won by the ruling party’s Bola Tinubu — an outcome which the opposition is contesting.

Earlier on Wednesday, a local court approved the electoral commission’s request to reset the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines, which form part of new technologies widely used in Nigerian elections this year.

However, that court ruling came “far too late” for the machines to be reset in time for the March 11 election, forcing a one-week postponement, the electoral body said.

Mr Okoye said: “This decision has not been taken lightly, but it is necessary to ensure that there is adequate time to back up the data stored on the over 176,000 BVAS machines from the presidential and National Assembly elections” and reconfigure them for the forthcoming elections.

Observer groups have criticised the commission over technological problems that marred the presidential vote. Those glitches have become key to challenges filed by the opposition against the ruling party’s victory.

The two main opposition parties say that the glitches made it possible for votes to be tampered with and that the commission did not follow its own rules and electoral laws in announcing a winner.