By Reporter
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) plans to approach the Appeal Court, today March 6, 2023 to get an order to allow it to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in readiness for the March 11 state elections.
A report quoted a “credible source” in INEC revealed to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), yesterday that, the order was significant following an order restraining it from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them were issued.
It further added that INEC would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the election that would take place in all 36 states of the federation, except the FCT.
“The commission’s Legal Department is actually preparing an application to be filed in court on Monday (today) to seek an order for it to reconfigure its BVAS for Saturday’s Governorship and state House of Assembly election,” the source said.
It was further explained that, “considering the number of BVAS required to conduct the election across states, INEC needed to reconfigure the BVAS used for the March 25 elections and deploy them to polling units for the Saturday election.
“The source added that the INEC technical team had to be deployed on time to commence the reconfiguration of the devices, which had to be done one by one.
“The order was important if the Saturday Governorship and state Houses of Assembly election must hold as scheduled, otherwise postponement of the election became inevitable.”
The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Friday March 3, 2023, had granted leave to the presidential candidates of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, to have access to all the sensitive materials used by INEC for the conduct of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
A panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh made the order after hearing two separate ex parte applications the two aggrieved presidential candidates filed alongside their political parties.
Specifically, the applicants urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents it used for the presidential election to aid their petitions against the outcome of the presidential election.
“An order granting the applicants’ permission to do electronic scanning and make photocopies of voter registration and ballot papers used in the conduct of the election for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria held on the February 25, 2023.
“An order granting leave to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the February 25, 2023 election for the Office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The plaintiffs also sought an order restraining INEC “from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them issued.”
The court, in its consideration, ordered INEC to allow the applicants to inspect all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the presidential election.
The court permitted the appellants to do electronic scanning and/or make photocopies of voter registration and ballot papers used in the conduct of the presidential election.
“That leave is hereby granted to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the February 25, 2023 Election for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the court ordered.
Should INEC succeed in securing the order, the plan by opposition parties to challenge the outcomes of the now contentious elections at the tribunal will amount to exercise in futility.
On the other hand, if the court refuses INEC its prayers, the March 11 Governorship and State Assemblies elections may not hold due to insufficient BVAS machine.