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As Election Tribunal Halts BVAS Reconfiguration In Ruling
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INEC Approaches Court To Seek Redress Five Days To Poll
Ahead of this Saturday’s Governorship and State Assembly elections, there has been dilemma over the use of BVAS as emerging indications suggest the mega election petitions filed by the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi respectively, might force the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to postpone the election.
The New Diplomat reports the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which is sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja had granted an order stopping INEC from tampering with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS) deployed in last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly Elections.
The New Diplomat had reported that the presidential candidates of LP, Obi and PDP, Atiku had approached the appellate court seeking an order granting them the pass to inspect election materials used during the 2023 presidential election, including the BVAS.
Obi in his application moved by his team of lawyers, led by Mr Alex Ejesieme, SAN, sought six principal reliefs, while Atiku’s lawyer, Adedamola Faloku, sought seven prayers from the tribunal.
In its ruling, the court granted the reliefs and with regards to the BVAS, said; “That leave is hereby granted to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the 25th February 2023 Election for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
With the ruling, INEC, which is currently in reputational crisis over his role in the disputed election results of last presidential poll, is compelled to tender all election materials to PDP and LP for investigations.
Checks by The New Diplomat reveals that INEC could be affected by the ruling as it barred the commission from tampering (with) and reconfiguring the BVAS to be able to deliver on its mandate this coming Saturday.
INEC is expected to deploy the same BVAS for the subnational elections, meaning that the commission will have to reconfigure them and make them fit for purpose of the Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections.
Further checks revealed that it takes an average of five days to configure the BVAS, meaning that the commission has to begin the process of reconfiguration latest by Tuesday.
A source in the electoral commission had told the media that though INEC would obey the court order it would also be approaching the court to vacate the order.
“If we leave the BVAS as the court has ordered, it simply means that we cannot use them for the state elections. So, we are approaching the court to seek a way out.”
To enable the use of BVAS for Saturday’s poll, INEC is reportedly set to approach the Court of Appeal today seeking to set aside the earlier ruling stopping it to tamper with the BVAS and other sensitive materials used for the February 25 presidential election.
According to the top official who spoke in confidence, “The commission as a law-abiding institution would seek the Court’s leave concerning the BVAS, they have to be re-configured polling units by polling units for the next election.
“We have to approach the court to grant us leave to do the re-configuration, as this cannot be done without the court order. The re-configuration must be done on time as it would be done manually and would be deployed to the designated PUs,” the INEC official was quoted as saying.
