BVAS: Appeal Court Rules Against INEC, Refuses To Vary Orders Granted Peter Obi, Atiku

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Wednesday refused to grant a request by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking to vary the order of the court granting access to the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar to inspect the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and other election materials.

According to the panel, the application was unnecessary because the court never granted permission to Atiku, Obi, and their parties to scientifically access and inspect INEC’s database.

The tribunal said the apprehension being expressed by INEC, which includes the possible revelation of the identities of voters and their voting choices, was unnecessary because no applicant was granted leave to access INEC’s database.

Ruling on INEC’s motion, the 3-man panel held that the electoral umpire’s application “is without merit and is refused”, adding that all the orders allowing Obi to inspect election materials stand.

However, the court emphasized that the first orders granted Obi did not say he should access INEC’s database or backend server.

“All that this court granted was that Obi obtains election materials and not to have access to INEC data base,” the court ruled.

The court explained that what it authorized aggrieved parties to inspect were electoral materials such as certified true copies of voter registers and scanned documents of ballot papers among others.

Naija News recalls Obi was granted leave by the Appeal Court court to inspect the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines and other sensitive materials that INEC deployed for the conduct of the February 25 presidential poll.

The panel, however, refused the application to stop INEC from reconfiguring the BVAS for the March 11 governorship polls.

The three-member panel of Justices in a unanimous decision on Wednesday held that stopping the electoral body from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the forthcoming Governorship and State Assembly elections.

The court dismissed objections raised against INEC’s move to reconfigure all the BVAS.

According to the court, allowing the objections by Obi would amount to “tying the hands of the Respondent, INEC”.

Besides, it noted that INEC had in an affidavit it filed before the court, assured that the accreditation data contained in the BVAS could not be tampered with or lost, as they would be stored and easily retrieved from its accredited back-end server.

It further observed that neither Obi nor LP controverted the depositions in INEC’s affidavit, stressing that since such averments were not challenged, it amounted to admission by the Applicants.

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