FESTUS Okoye, a National Commissioner for Independent National Electoral Commission says  INEC is ready for the general elections re-scheduled for Saturdays, February 23 and March 9, stressing that the commission won’t fail the second time.

Okoye in an interview with the BBC on Monday said that the election had to be shifted to 23 February due to logistic challenges.

According to him,  some sensitive materials printed abroad could not be flown to the designated states due to bad weather.

He said that the sensitive materials previously delivered have been moved to the Central Bank in each state for safe keeping.

He apologised for the upset the postponement might have caused Nigerians but said INEC could not have made an early announcement as the officials believed they could still conduct the elections on February 16.

“Up until the last moments we were still confident that we can still go ahead with the announcement and that even if there was going to be any postponement it was going to be Monday.”

However, he said that the decision to shift the election came after the commission’s consultation with the Information Communication Technology Department (ICT).

“The commission was told that it would take about five to seven days to have the card readers reconfigured hence the commission had to postpone the election by a week so that these changes can be made,” Okoye said.

The presidential and National Assembly elections have been rescheduled to hold on 23 February, while the governorship, State House of Assembly and the FCT Area Council elections are to hold on 9th March 2019.