Labour Party’s desire to see BVAS reconfigured is denied by INEC

The Labour Party attacked the Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday, alleging that the election supervisor purposefully came up with the idea of rearranging the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines after the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, sought to scrutinise the election materials.

The commission’s assertion that the data taken from the BVAS was supported by independent witnesses and political party leaders was criticised by the party as being false.

Hardly a day had passed after INEC postponed the gubernatorial and state house of assembly elections that were originally scheduled for March 11 in order to reconfigure the BVAS machines when the demonstration was organised.

The commission’s plea to modify the BVAS that were used for the presidential election was allowed by the Presidential Election Petition Court, which was convened at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

A three-judge panel of the court dismissed the LP’s objection after reaching the unanimous conclusion that doing so would have a negative impact on the upcoming governorship and state assembly elections.

Nevertheless, Yunusa Tanko, the chief spokesperson for the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, underlined that INEC erred in asserting that it had provided independent verification of the data from the BVAS in the absence of any witnesses.

Tanko further charged that the electoral umpire was continuously altering the rules of engagement in an effort to hide some of the irregularities they had earlier noticed.

Are we privy to what was backed up, or are we only asked to see it? If there is to be transparency, INEC must invite everyone and their technological specialists to view what the commission plans to substantiate from the original source. Is this completed?

“We did not want to introduce that as proof in a court of law. We have our own results, and INEC shouldn’t disregard those. Anything that runs counter to that particular outcome and the evidence they provided will be completely unacceptable to us.

“From the outset, it seems obvious that INEC purposefully approached the court to have the BVAS machines reconfigured when Obi asked to examine the election papers. Of course, neither you nor I are aware of any possibility of reconfiguration at this moment from the commission. We demanded that those machines be inspected, and it was done as a result.

“It’s crucial to communicate the rule of engagement to everyone before entering into an agreement and to make sure that it remains unchanged. To cover up their unethical dealings, INEC, meanwhile, continues altering the rules of engagement. It is regrettable that INEC must be lowered to this level.

READ ALSO: Transmission of results via electronic means: Court rejects LP’s claim against INEC

The LP campaign spokesman mentioned that Obi was talking with his lawyers to decide whether or not to challenge the court order on BVAS reconfiguration, while also adding that they had lost faith in the commission’s ability to conduct a free and fair election.

In addition, Tanko warned the electoral body to make an effort to improve and endeavour to act morally in order to prevent angering the general populace.

Similar to the PDP, INEC’s ability to administer the next gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections in a free, fair, and transparent way was questioned.

In a statement on the subject, Debo Ologunagba, the PDP’s national publicity director, claimed that most Nigerians had doubted the sincerity of the commission due to its actions during the previous two weeks.

In spite of INEC’s knowledge that they would not be able to pull it off, the gubernatorial and assembly elections were scheduled to take place on March 11th, he claimed. A new date of March 18 has been chosen. Why won’t they let the parties that received a court order obtain such information from BVAS so that they may verify their honesty? How can we be confident that INEC will even be able to hold legitimate elections this time around, given their recent behaviour?

The integrity and credibility of INEC are at stake in this. What is the common opinion in Nigeria now towards INEC? It was evident that INEC was unable to live up to its promises based on its actions both during and after the election.

Ologunagba responded to the commission’s claims that data from the BVAS would be stored securely in the cloud and back-end and made available to the PDP at any time, saying, “This election is technologically driven, but today, INEC is on its own, deliberately undermining a process it promised the entire world it would sanitise.

The potential for data loss when stored in the cloud is something you would learn about on Google. Data loss is a potential problem. Thus, why does INEC not seem concerned like the rest of us if there is a chance of data loss? How can we be certain that the information will be kept safe? We would like INEC to respond to this query.

Rotimi Oyekanmi, the principal press secretary to the INEC chairman, responded by stating that the data backup of the BVAS was a matter for the commission to handle internally and was not available for examination by outside parties.

“No outside observers are permitted to observe the reconfiguration or data back-processing of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System devices; these operations are purely a matter for the Independent National Electoral Commission.

“Political parties are, of course, free to observe a test-run of the BVAS, and they did so during the dummy accreditation exercise that we conducted prior to the general elections.”

“But, it’s very, very odd that the Labour Party would have any interest in seeing this sort of action. They want to see just what, though. The design and printing of ballots and result sheets is something the party might also be interested in seeing.

It’s similar to when students demand to be present while their teachers are choosing the exam questions. Even though the commission values and upholds a warm relationship with the Inter-Party Advisory Council, the boundaries are clear and understood by both parties, according to Oyekanmi.

When asked how long it would take INEC to finish the BVAS reset and store the backup’s data, Oyekanmi replied, “approximately three days.”

(PUNCH)