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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has approved the application by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used for the February 25 presidential election.
A three-member panel of justices led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh ruled on Wednesday that the reconfiguration was to enable the commission conduct the March 11 governorship and state assembly elections.
The panel was ruling on an application brought by the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, seeking access to inspect and certify sensitive materials used for the conduct of the election.
The panel held that INEC’s submission that the accreditation data from the 176,000 BVAS used for the presidential election would be uploaded and stored in the backend of the server, was not challenged or controverted by Obi and Labour Party and thus they were deemed admitted.
The court, in a unanimous decision by the three-member panel of justices, held that preventing the electoral umpire from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the forthcoming governorship and state assembly elections.
According to the court, allowing the objections by Obi and his party, would amount to “tying the hands of the Respondent, INEC.”
It subsequently dismissed objections by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Obi, against the request.
Justice Ikyegh chided the applicants for repeating their request to be allowed to scan and make copies of the electoral materials in INEC’s possession stating that it amounted to an abuse of court process.
He noted that INEC had in an affidavit filed before the court, assured that the accreditation data contained in the BVAS could not be tampered with or lost.
The judge, 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 (CTC) of results of the physical inspection of the BVAS.
Court grants Tonight access to inspect election materials
The panel also granted an application by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, access to inspect sensitive materials used for the presidential election to enable him and the party defend the petitions filed against them
Tinubu, through his lawyer, Mr Akintola Makinde, said he would need to inspect, scan and make photocopies of some of the electoral materials to enable him to prepare his defence against petitions that would seek to nullify his election.
While Tinubu’s first ex-parte application, which was filed on March 6, has the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi as respondents, in the second application, the Peoples Democratic Party, and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, were cited as respondents, alongside INEC.
“The materials will be relevant in helping us to prepare our defence and also make comparison with the information contained in INEC’s back-end server,” Makinde said.
Delivering judgment on Wednesday, a three-member panel, in four rulings on Wednesday granted the reliefs sought by Tinubu and APC in the fourth motion ex-parte.