The court of appeal has granted the Independent National Electoral Commission’s request to reconfigure the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) ahead of the governorship and state assembly elections.
In the ruling delivered on Wednesday, a three-member panel of the court of appeal led by Joseph Ikyegh, held that restraining the electoral commission would hamper the conduct of March 11th elections by INEC.
The appellate court granted INEC’s request because the electoral body said all data in BVAS machines would be transferred to a back end server before they are reconfigured and will not be tampered with.
The court also 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 Copies, of result of the physical inspection of the BVAS.
The electoral umpire deposed in their affidavit that the accreditation data will not be tampered with.
In an application, Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), had sought an order of the court “restraining the 1st respondent (INEC) from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the due inspection is conducted and certified true copies (CTC) of them issued”.
More to follow…
