LP'S REQUEST TO OBSERVE THE BVAS RECONFIGURATION IS DENIED BY INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission was criticized by the Labour Party on Thursday. The party's presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had attempted to examine the election materials when the electoral umpire decided to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines.

This occurred as the party criticized the commission's assertion that the information obtained from the BVAS was supported by independent witnesses and political party leaders who were not there.

The commission's appeal to reconfigure the BVAS that were used for the presidential election was approved by the Presidential Election Petition Court, which was sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

The commission's appeal to reconfigure the BVAS that were used for the presidential election was approved by the Presidential Election Petition Court, which was sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

In a unanimous ruling, the court dismissed the LP's objection and determined that stopping the electoral umpire from reorganizing the BVAS would have a negative impact on the upcoming governorship and state assembly elections.

However, Yunusa Tanko, the chief spokesperson for the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, reaffirmed that INEC erred in asserting that it had backed up the data from the BVAS without providing any witnesses.

Tanko further alleged that the electoral umpire frequently altered its rules of engagement to hide some of the irregularities they had already noticed.

He said, "Are we privy or invited to see what was being backed up? If there is going to be transparency, what INEC needs to do is to invite everybody with their technological experts to see what the commission intends to back up from the original source. Was this done?

"We didn't want to use that as evidence in the court of law. INEC should not forget that we also have our own results. Anything contradictory to that particular result and what they backed up will be totally unacceptable to us.