INEC requests court modification of the election materials inspection order

In order to change the ex parte ruling in favour of the Labour Party and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) over the inspection of election-related materials, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has petitioned the Court of Appeal.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the appellate court on March 3 gave Atiku Abubakar of the PPD and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party permission to examine election materials used by INEC to conduct the presidential election on February 25.

Following two separate ex parte requests made by Atiku and Obi, who finished second and third in the presidential election won by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, the court granted the pair permission (APC).

To be able to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the March 11 governorship and state house of assembly elections, the commission has filed an application with the court, which NAN has seen.

According to NAN, the election umpire’s motion to the court included just this one prayer.

Yet, there is no set time for the application’s hearing.

According to a reliable source in the commission, the application was required as a result of a court order prohibiting the commission from altering the data stored on the BVAS machines until a proper inspection had been carried out and Certified True Copies had been given.

The source, who spoke off-camera, stated that the commission would need enough time to reconfigure the BVAS required to conduct the poll, which would take place across the 36 states of the federation apart from the FCT.

The source claims that INEC needs to reconfigure the BVAS used for the elections on February 25 and deploy them to polling places for the elections on March 11. This is due to the quantity of BVAS needed to conduct the election throughout the states.

According to the source, the commission’s technical team needed to be dispatched promptly in order to begin the one-by-one reconfiguration of the devices.

According to the source, the directive was necessary since failure to receive it may force the Saturday elections for the state houses of assembly and governor to be postponed. (NAN)