The Nigeria Immigration Service will at midnight on Saturday close all land borders into the country and across states ahead of the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections.
The 24-hour border restriction will expire at midnight on Sunday, according to a memo provided to our correspondent by the Service Spokesperson, Anthony Akuneme, even as the collation of results across states gets underway.
The Federal Government has instructed the absolute closure of all land borders effective from 00:00 on Saturday, March 18, 2023, until 00:00 on Sunday, March 19, 2023, according to a directive issued by the service Comptroller-General, Isah Idris.
Thus, it is the responsibility of all command comptrollers, particularly those in the border states, to guarantee that this direction is strictly followed.
While the borders with neighboring Cameroun, Niger, Chad, and the Benin Republic will be closed for 24 hours, state administrations will be in charge of regulating movement into and out of respective regions.
The Ministry of Interior intimated that states will ensure the entry of people and commodities into their borders during the election process in a conversation with one of our correspondents early on Friday.
The second phase of the 2023 general elections will take place on March 18, with 28 states participating.
About three weeks have passed since the presidential and national assembly elections in which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared the winner.
Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfara are among the states.
However, because of lawsuits and court rulings, governorship elections in the states of Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Osun, and Ondo are held outside of the regular election cycle.
Yet, there will be elections for the State House of Assembly in each of the nation’s 36 states.
