INEC's MOTION TO MODIFY BVAs WILL BE DECIDED BY THE APPEALS COURT ON MARCH 8
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) were given permission to see the electoral materials as one of the requirements for submitting petitions to contest any irregularities in the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.
Judge Joseph Ikyegh, who chaired a three- member panel of the Court of Appeal, declared the date for deciding after lawyers representing parties in the complaint adopted and argued their briefs of argument for and against the application.
For permission to modify the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used for the presidential and legislative elections, INEC has petitioned the appellate court on March 4.
The reconfiguration, according to the electoral umpire, will allow for the deployment of the BVAS for the upcoming elections for the state houses of assembly and for governor.
The information that would be erased during reconfiguration would be stored and saved on its server in the cloud, according to INEC, which urged the court to approve its plea through its attorney, Mr. Inuwa Tanimu, SAN.
The conduct of the March 11 governorship election may be impacted by the earlier order, according to Tanimu, who underlined that time is not on the electoral umpire's side.
Chief Onyechi Ikpeazu and Chief Emeka Etiaba, Senior Advocates of Nigeria who were representing Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar respectively, opposed the granting of the varying order, claiming that doing so would erase crucial evidence that would have helped them prove their cases.
Ikpeazu asserts that the BVAS is the only source of accurate information regarding the number of accredited voters, and that any changes made to the BVAS under the guise of reconfiguration will result in the loss of crucial data.
The senior attorney also claimed that if necessary, the elections scheduled for March 11 might be postponed.
In light of this, he recommended the court to deny the commission's application.
Ikpeazu asked the court to force INEC to give him a Certified True Copy (CTC) of the registered voters and polling place results while also granting his clients permission to conduct a physical/digital forensic inspection of the presidential electoral materials.
He argued that the request was made to make sure that the evidence was preserved before it was destroyed, noting that the information on the INEC server changes every day and that it was only after getting the information from the BVAS that they were able to demonstrate that there was no over-voting in the governorship election last year.
You may recall that the PDP's Atiku Abubakar and the LP's Peter Obi secured a court order to review the election materials, including the BVAS, as a form of protest against the results of the presidential election.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, was proclaimed the victor of the presidential election by INEC after receiving the most votes cast.
Tinubu won the election with more than eight million votes, followed by Atiku with about seven million and Obi with just over six million.
Like Tinubu and Atiku, who each won 12 states, Obi won 11 states as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Both Atiku and Obi promised to air their issues at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, the court tasked with hearing and ruling on cases pertaining to the conduct of the presidential election, after Tinubu was declared the election's victor.
Atiku and Obi, who have not yet submitted their individual petitions, asked for permission to scrutinize the materials used for the February 25 presidential election in separate ex parte motions.
They claim that the injunction will help them gather the proof they need to refute claims of non-compliance and election manipulation.
Both Atiku and Obi assert that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling APC, and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu received the greatest number of votes cast in the majority of the states, and as a result, they should be declared the winner. They accuse INEC of rigging the election in their favor.
Last Friday, after hearing from each of their applications, Judge Ikyegh issued a ruling allowing Atiku and Obi to view, "all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the election for the office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria held on February 25, 2023."
Additionally, the court gave them permission to electronically scan and/or copy the presidential election ballots and voter registration forms.
Moreover, both Atiku and Obi are authorized by the ruling to, "carry out digital forensic inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the February 25" presidential election.
The APC and Tinubu had petitioned the court to let them to conduct a similar check of the electoral materials used for the February 25 presidential election, and the court will rule on their applications on Wednesday.
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