INEC Seeks Court To Modify Inspection Order Given To Atiku And Obi

The Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party’s Peter Obi, respectively, were given orders to inspect the materials used for the previous presidential election, but the Independent National Electoral Commission has urged the Presidential Election Petition Court to modify those orders.

In a move on notice submitted on March 4, INEC asks the court to modify the ruling prohibiting it from tampering with election-related materials.

For the subsequent round of voting, the commission ruled that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System needed to be modified.
Atiku of the PDP and Obi of the Labour Party were given permission to examine election materials used by INEC to conduct the February 25 presidential election by the appellate court on March 3.

The court granted the duo permission, following two separate ex parte applications filed by Atiku and Obi, who came second and third respectively in the presidential election won by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress.

Ahead of March 11 Elections, INEC Seek Court Permission To Reconfigure BVAS

In the application filed by the commission and sighted by NAN, the commission is asking the court to vary the order to allow it to reconfigure its BVAS for the March 11 governorship and state houses of assembly elections.

NAN reports that it is the sole prayer in the application of the electoral umpire filed at the court.
No date has however been fixed for hearing of the application.

A credible source in the commission had told NAN that the application became necessary following an order restraining it from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them were issued.

Speaking off camera, the source said that the commission would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the election that would take place in the 36 states of the federation excluding the FCT.

BVAS Will Be Used In The Governorship – INEC Chairman, Yakubu

According to the source, considering the number of BVAS required to conduct the election across the states, INEC needs to reconfigure the BVAS used for the February 25 elections and deploy them to polling units for the March 11 elections.

The source said that the technical team of the commission had to be deployed on time to start the reconfiguration of the devices, which had to be done one by one.

The source said the order was pertinent as not getting it could result to a postponement of the Saturday governorship and state houses of assembly elections.

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