The Court of Appeal in Abuja has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to consider the merits of an application filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in the recently concluded presidential election. After hearing the parties, the three‑man panel, chaired by Justice Joseph High, adjourned the ruling until Wednesday.
Obi and the Labour Party, represented by a team of lawyers led by SAN Onyechi Ikpeazu, argued that the purpose of the application is to enable them to extract data embedded in the BVAS, which they claim represent the actual results from polling units. They also sought a Certified True Copy of all data stored in the BVAS. “My lords, this is to ensure that the evidence is preserved before the BVAS are reconfigured by INEC. If the data are wiped out, it will affect the substance of the case,” Ikpeazu said.
INEC, represented by a team of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria headed by Mr. Tanimu Inuwa, SAN, urged the court to reject the application. INEC contended that granting the request would disrupt its preparations for the upcoming governorship and state assembly elections. The commission noted that approximately 176,000 BVAS units were deployed to polling stations during the presidential election, each of which must be reconfigured for the forthcoming polls. “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 to our backend server. We need the BVAS configured. Granting this application will clog the process and may delay the conduct of the elections,” INEC’s lawyer Inuwa, SAN, pleaded.
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