Aduragbemi Omiyale
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been granted permission to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the governorship and state houses of assembly elections slated for March 11, 2023.
The permission was granted by a three-member panel of the court of appeal led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh in Abuja on Wednesday on the condition that the data is uploaded to a back-end server of INEC and the true certified copy made available to the respondents.
The candidates of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Atiku Abubakar, in the February 25 presidential election had approached the appellate court to seek permission to have access to election materials to challenge the outcome of the exercise.
But the electoral body said it wanted to reconfigure the BVAS machines for the polls scheduled for this weekend.
In his argument, the counsel to INEC, Mr Tanimu Inuwa (SAN), said the application became necessary following an order restraining it from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the due inspection was conducted and certified, adding that the commission would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the election that would take place on Saturday.
