The Independent National Electoral Commission says it would request an order from the Appellate Court on Monday to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the March 11 elections.
On Sunday, a reputable source in the commission said that the ruling was crucial in light of an order prohibiting the commission from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the proper inspection was done and certified true copies were issued.
According to the source, who requested anonymity, INEC would need enough time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the elections on Saturday.
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“The commission’s legal department is actually preparing an application to be filled in the court on Monday to seek an order for it to reconfigure its BVAS for Saturday governorship and state houses of assembly elections,” the source said.
Given the amount of BVAS required to conduct the election across states, the source explained that INEC needed to modify the BVAS used for the March 25 elections and deploy them to polling stations for the Saturday election.
According to the source, the INEC technical team must be deployed on time to begin the device re-configuration, which must be done one by one.
According to the source, the order was necessary if the Saturday governorship and state legislative elections were to take place as planned; otherwise, the poll would have to be postponed.
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On Friday, the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal granted presidential candidates Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party access to all sensitive information utilized by INEC in the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.
The ruling was issued by an appellate court panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh after hearing two separate ex parte applications brought by the two dissatisfied presidential candidates and their political organizations.
The petitioners specifically asked the court to order INEC to allow them to receive records used in the presidential poll in order to aid their petitions challenging the outcome of the presidential election.
“An order granting the applicants’ permission to do electronic scanning and make photocopies of voter’s registration, ballot papers used in the conduct of the election for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria held on the February 25,” said the court document. “An order granting leave to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the February 25 election for the Office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
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The plaintiffs also sought an order restraining INEC “from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them issued.”
In its decision, the court directed INEC to allow the applicants to inspect all electoral materials used in the conduct of the presidential election.
The court granted the appellants permission to scan and/or photocopy voter registration and ballot papers used in the presidential election.
“That leave is hereby granted to the applicants to carry out digital forensic inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the February 25, 2023 Election for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the court had ordered.
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