The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, on Wednesday, arrived at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, ahead of ruling on a request by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reconfigure the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.
Obi had obtained the appellate court’s permission to inspect sensitive electoral materials including the BVAS machines that were deployed in the conduct of the presidential and National Assembly elections on 25 February.
But INEC approached the court seeking to reconfigure and deploy the equipment for the conduct of the Saturday, 11 March governorship and state parliamentary elections.
The appellate court is to rule on the electoral umpire’s application today, Wednesday.
Obi arrived at the Court at about 1:35 p.m . in company with the Labour Party national chairman, Julius Abure, and senator-elect, Victor Umeh.
The former Anambra State governor who came third in the results of the presidential election announced by INEC had announced his decision to challenge the outcome of the poll in court.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that a three-member panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh had slated Wednesday, March 8, 2023, to rule on the application by INEC to be allowed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) it used for the presidential election.
A three-member panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh also adjourned to rule on the application filed by the Labour Party (LP), and its candidate, Mr Peter Obi, to be allowed to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS that was used for the poll.
Onyechi Ikpeazu, Counsel to Obi says the essence of the application was to enable them to extract data embedded in the BVAS, which represents the actual results from polling units.
Ikpeazu, prayed the court to allow them to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS that was used for the presidential election, as this is to ensure that the evidence is preserved before the BVAS are reconfigured by INEC.
He added that if they are wiped out, it will affect the substance of the case.
They equally applied to obtain the certified true copy, of all the data in the BVAS.
Counsel to INEC, Mister Tanimu Inuwa, urged the court to refuse the application, insisting that granting the request by obi and the Labour Party (LP) would affect its preparations for the impending governorship and national assembly elections.
It told the court that there are about 176, 000 BVAS that were deployed to polling units during the presidential election, and each polling unit has its own particular BVAS machine which they need to configure for the forthcoming elections. He says it will be very difficult to reconfigure the number, within the period, within the period, to reconfigure the 176,000
He added that no information in the BVAS will be lost as they will transfer all the data in the BVAS to their backend server.
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