The tribunal noted that INEC had in an affidavit assured that the accreditation data contained in the BVAS could not be tampered with or lost.
By Jeffrey Agbo
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has granted the request of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which it used for the presidential election.
In a unanimous decision on Wednesday by a three-member panel of justices, the tribunal held that stopping the electoral body from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections.
The tribunal, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, dismissed objections that the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, raised against INEC’s move to reconfigure the machines.
Granting Obi’s objection, the tribunal said, would amount to “tying the hands of the respondent, INEC.”
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Besides, it noted that INEC had in an affidavit 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.
Nevertheless, the court ordered INEC to allow the applicants to inspect and carry out digital forensic examination of all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections, as well as to avail them the Certified True Copy of the result of the physical inspection of the machines.
Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led panel faulted Obi and LP for repeating their request to be allowed to scan and make copies of the electoral materials in INEC’s possession.
Noting that the request was earlier granted, the panel held that repeating the prayer amounted to an abuse of court process.