The Court of Appeal on Wednesday granted INEC permission to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, for the Saturday Governorship and State Assemblies Elections.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, granted leave to the applicant for the purposes of configuring the BVAS for the election on Saturday.
The panel, however, asked INEC to upload data to back-end server and make true Certified copy to Peter Obi.
INEC in its motion filed on March 4, asked the appellate court to vary the ex parte order made in favour of Labour Party and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, with regards to inspection of materials used for the presidential election.
The appellate court had on March 3, granted leave to Atiku Abubakar of the PPD and Peter Obi of Labour Party to inspect election materials used by INEC to conduct the Feb. 25 presidential election.
The court granted the duo permission following two separate ex parte applications filed by Atiku and Obi, who came second and third respectively in the presidential election won by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The commission is asking the court to vary the order to allow it to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, for the March 11 governorship and state houses of assembly elections.
Counsel to INEC, Tanimu Inuwa, SAN said the application became necessary following an order restraining it from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified.
He added that the commission would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the election that would take place on Saturday.
He told the court that INEC would upload from back-end.
In his argument, counsel for Obi, Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, prayed the court not to grant INEC’s application for granting it would mean losing the original information there.
”All we are seeking is for a physical inspection of the BVAS so that the evidence is obtained before it will be configured” he told the court.
He therefore, opposed INEC application and urged the court not to grant it.
The three man panel of the appellate court after listening to their submissions adjourned until Wednesday for ruling.
Summary of Appeal court judgement.
- Court refused to vary the previous order of the court in favour of INEC, so previous order stands.
- Court allowed for INEC to re-configure BVAS provided all data is saved on a secured backend server before the next election and must give access to LP. (Emphasis on “which cannot be tampered with”).
- Labour should be given Certified True Copy of all data and result (physical).
Finally, the Court granted 100% access to LP to inspect the machines and certified original result sheets.
