Peter Okoye, PBA Journalism Mentee
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has gone to the Court of Appeal in Abuja, asking it varies the orders granted for candidates of the Labour Party (LP), and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to be allowed to inspect sensitive materials that were used for the presidential election.
This was contained in an application filed by INEC dated 4th March 2023.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe Commission is asking the court which will sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, to alter the order which retrains it from tampering with the materials used for the presidential and national assembly elections.
READ ALSO: Presidential Poll: Court Grants Obi, Atiku, Leave To Inspect INEC’s Election Materials
The request is to enable it to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
The electoral body told the court that the request is to enable it to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) ahead of the March 11 governorship and national assembly elections.
The Commission said that the reconfiguration was necessary since the BVAS would equally be used for the subsequent elections, starting with the governorship and state assemblies elections scheduled for Saturday, 11th March 2023 as well as other rescheduled elections.
INEC added that it reset the BVAS and get them ready for the upcoming election.
It insisted that the governorship and state assembly elections may not be able to hold if the court fails to grant the request.
Recall that a panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh granted two ex-parte applications brought by Obi and Atiku for access to inspect all the sensitive materials INEC deployed for the conduct of the presidential election which took place on February 25.
The panel made the orders after it heard the two separate ex-parte applications presented by the two aggrieved presidential candidates filed alongside their political parties against INEC, the winner of the presidential election, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as well as his party, the All Progressives Congress, (APC), over some irregularities in the election.
