APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The Presidential Election Petition Court sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Wednesday granted approval to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
The Nigerian electoral body had approached the Court of Appeal, Abuja to grant it approval to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections on Saturday, March 11, 2023.
Delivering the ruling on Wednesday, Justice James Abundaga, said that the approval was granted on the ground that the information on the BVAS machines would be uploaded into the back-end server of the BVAS, which cannot be tampered with.
The Labour Party had approached the Court with an application to be allowed to conduct physically inspection of all the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used for the presidential election to ensure that the evidence is preserved before the BVAS are reconfigured by INEC.
The party added that if they are wiped out, it will affect the substance of the case.
But the Counsel to INEC, Tanimu Inuwa, had urged the court not to grant the application, insisting that granting the request by Obi and the Labour Party (LP) would affect its preparations for the impending governorship and National Assembly elections on Saturday, March 11, 2023.
The court, however, ordered INEC to allow the Applicants to inspect and carry out digital forensic examination of all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections, as well as to avail them the Certified True Copy, of result of the physical inspection of the BVAS.
The Labour Party had opposed the plan to reconfigure the BVAS by INEC in order to avoid tampering with the results of the presidential and parliamentary results uploaded in the BVAS.
The party, which rejected the result of the presidential election announced by INEC last Wednesday, has already approached the courts to contest the declaration of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the election and president-election.
GIK/APA
Breaking: Court grants INEC’s request to reconfigure BVAS
