The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Wednesday, granted the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), the permission to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines used for the February 25th presidential election.
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The court however declined the commission’s request to vary order allowing Obi, Atiku to inspect electoral materials
The court, which in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of Justices, led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, grants Tinubu access to electoral materials to prepare his defence, held that stopping the electoral body from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the impending Governorship and State Assembly elections.
It dismissed objections that the Labour Party, (LP,) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, raised against INEC’s move to reconfigure all the BVAS devices that were used for the presidential poll.
According to the court, allowing the objections by Obi and his party would amount to “tying the hands of the Respondent, INEC”.
Besides, it noted that INEC filed an affidavit, wherein it assured that accreditation data contained in the BVAS could not be tampered with or lost, as they would be stored and easily retrieved from its back-end server.
The court held that neither Obi nor the LP controverted the depositions INEC made in the affidavit, stressing that since such averments were not challenged, it amounted to admission by the opposing parties.
However, the court dismissed a motion that INEC filed to vary the order it made on March 3, which granted both Obi and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, access to inspect and obtain copies of sensitive materials that were used for the election.
It held that the motion INEC filed to set aside the order, lacked merit.
INEC had contended that allowing the Applicants to have access to and make copies of some of the sensitive materials, would compromise the secrecy of the ballot papers.
Meanwhile, though the court restated its order for both Obi and Atiku to be allowed to access the electoral materials, it warned that the order was not a permission for the duo to electronically open INEC’s database.
Similarly, the court directed INEC to also allow the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to inspect and obtain copies of the electoral material, to enable him to prepare his defence against petitions that may be lodged to overturn his election victory.
It held that both Tinubu and his party were entitled to have access to the materials in INEC’s possession.
Tinubu and the APC had in separate exparte applications they brought before the court, said they would need the materials to prepare their defence.
“The materials will be relevant in helping us to prepare our defence and also make comparison with the information contained in INEC’s back-end server”, Tinubu’s lawyer, Mr Akintola Makinde submitted.
Specifically, the court, ordered INEC to allow the Applicants to inspect all the electoral materials and to carry out electronic scanning and/or make photocopies of Voter’s Registration and Ballot Papers used for the presidential election.
It further granted them leave to conduct a Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the election, adding that INEC should furnish them with the Certified True Copy, CTC, of the result of the inspection.
Though both Obi and Atiku sought an order to restrain INEC from tampering with the information contained in the BVAS, the court declined on the premise that such an order would affect the conduct of the next round of elections.
INEC had insisted that the reconfiguration of the BVAS was necessary since they would be deployed for the impending elections.
It maintained that by restraining it from purging the BVAS through reconfiguration, it would be difficult for it to proceed with the scheduled elections.
The electoral body had urged the court to refuse the request by Obi and LP to be allowed to extract data embedded in the BVAS, “which represent the actual results from Polling Units”.
“My lords, this is to ensure that the evidence is preserved before the BVAS are reconfigured by INEC. This is because if they are wiped out, it will affect the substance of our case”, Obi’s lead counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, submitted.
However, opposing the application, INEC insisted that granting the request would affect its preparations for th governorship and State Assembly elections.
It told the Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led panel that there were a total of 176, 000 BVAS that were deployed to polling units during the presidential election.
“Each polling unit has its own particular BVAS machine which we need to configure for the forthcoming elections.
“It will be very difficult for us, within the period, to reconfigure the 176, 000 BVAS.
“We have already stated in our affidavit that no information in the BVAS will be lost as we will transfer all the data in the BVAS to our back-end server.
“We need the BVAS configured. So, granting this application will be a clog in the process and may delay the conduct of the elections”, INEC’s lead lawyer, Tanimu Inuwa, SAN, pleaded
Other Justices on the panel of the appellate court that heard all the applications were Justices Haruna Simon Tsammani and James Gambo Abundaga.
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