The Appeal Court sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday, granted the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), requests on the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), ahead of March 11, 2023.
The court noted that refusal to allow INEC reconfigure the machines will end up tying their hands ahead of the election.
A three-member panel of the appellate court led by Joseph Ikyegh granted permission to the electoral body to reconfigure the machines ahead of Saturday’s governorship and houses of assembly elections across the 36 states of the federation.
The court also refused to vary the permission earlier granted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) to inspect materials used by the commission in the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.
The panel ordered INEC to upload the data on the BVAS machines to the back-end server and make certified true copies of the data to the respondents.
The Appeal Court also granted a request by Bola Tinubu, president-elect and candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), to equally access the BVAS and sensitive materials used by INEC during the presidential poll.
The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi had on Wednesday, stormed the Court of Appeal Abuja in company of the party’s national chairman, Julius Abure and Victor Umeh, ahead of the anticipated ruling on the reconfiguration of BVAS.
It will be recalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC ), had requested the Appeal Court to vary the permission earlier granted the PDP and Labour Party (LP) to inspect materials used by the commission in the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.
The request was sequel to INEC’s plans to reconfigure the BVAS, used for the February 25, Presidential and National Assembly election.
INEC said the request was predicated on the need to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in the presidential election before deploying them for the March 11 governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls.
But, the PDP and Labour Party expressed the fears that INEC may be planning to “Destroy Evidence of its rigging of the February 25, 2023 Presidential Election”
The PDP said INEC’s requests have elicited questions about the integrity of the February 25, Presidential and National Assembly poll.
“INEC in a desperate move to prevent our party and candidate from obtaining necessary evidence as ordered by the court, filed a motion requesting that it be allowed to reconfigure the BVAS machines and wipe out relevant information that our party and candidate require to prosecute our case at the Presidential Election Tribunal,” PDP said.
The party described INEC’s action as “reprehensible”, adding that “it is to frustrate the desire of Nigerians to get redress through the court is a clear recipe for crisis and a deliberate design by the commission to derail our democracy and trigger anarchy in the country.
