BY: News Peddlers
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| BIVAS |
The Presidential Election Petition Court of Nigeria, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, has granted the Independent National Electoral Commission permission to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System used in the presidential election.
The court, in a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel, held that preventing the electoral body from reconfiguring the BVAS would have a negative impact on the upcoming Governorship and State Assembly elections.
While dismissing objections raised by the Labour Party, and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, against INEC's move to reconfigure all the BVAS, the court insisted that allowing the objections would amount to "tying the hands of the Respondent, INEC".
The judges noted that INEC had assured the court in an affidavit that the accreditation data contained in the BVAS would not be tampered with or lost because it would be stored and easily retrieved from its accredited back-end server.
It went on to say that neither Obi nor LP disputed the depositions in INEC's affidavit, and that the fact that such averments were not challenged amounted to an admission by the Applicants.
Nonetheless, Saharan Reporters has reported that the court ordered INEC to allow the Applicants to inspect and conduct a digital forensic examination of all electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections, as well as to provide them with the Certified True Copy of the BVAS physical inspection results.
The panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh chastised Obi and LP for repeating their request to scan and copy electoral materials in INEC's possession.
Despite the fact that the request had previously been granted, the panel concluded that repeating the prayer constituted an abuse of the court process.
INEC had insisted that the BVAS be reconfigured because they would be used in the next round of elections.
It maintained that it would be difficult to proceed with the scheduled elections unless the court quickly modified the order previously granted to Obi and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, particularly the aspect prohibiting it from tampering with formation contained in the BVAS.
Obi and his party requested permission to conduct a physical inspection of all BVAS used in the presidential election in their application marked CA/PEC/09m/23.
The Applicants, through their team of lawyers led by Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, said the essence of the application was to enable them to extract data embedded in the BVAS, "which represent the actual results from Polling Units".
They specifically requested "leave to carry out digital forensic and physical inspection of BVAS, etc," as well as a Certified True Copy, CTC, of all data in the BVAS.
"My lords, this is to ensure that the evidence is preserved before INEC reconfigures the BVAS. This is because if they are wiped out, the substance of our case will suffer," Ikpeazu, SAN, added.
While opposing the application, INEC maintained that granting it would jeopardise its preparations for the upcoming Governorship and National Assembly elections.
It informed the court that 176, 000 BVAS machines were deployed to polling units during the presidential election. "Each polling unit has its own BVAS machine, which we must configure for the upcoming elections.It will be extremely difficult for us to reconfigure the 176, 000 BVAS within the time frame.
"We have already stated in our affidavit that no information in the BVAS will be lost because we will transfer all data in the BVAS to our back-end server.
"The BVAS must be configured. So, granting this application will be a stumbling block in the process and may cause the elections to be postponed," INEC's lead lawyer, Tanimu Inuwa, SAN, pleaded.
Meanwhile, over 70 civil society organisations (CSOs) have protested INEC's decision to reconfigure BVAS and erase data collected during the presidential election.
The Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room was outraged by INEC's alleged plan to erase data captured by BVAS during the recent presidential election.
The Situation Room is made up of over 70 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) working in support of credible and transparent elections in Nigeria.
This was stated in a statement released to the public on Tuesday by the group's convener, Ene Obi, and Co-Conveners Asma'u Joda and James Ugochukwu, who urged INEC to explain how the commission intends to preserve voter information captured by the machine for possible review ahead of future elections.
(Sahara Reporters)