Peter Obi storms Appeal Court for ruling on INEC’s BVAS request

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 presidential election, Peter Obi was on Wednesday at the Appeal Court, Abuja division, venue of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).

His visit was to await the ruling of the court on a request filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be allowed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which was used for the just concluded presidential election.

At the court, Obi urged his supporters not to flood the premises to enable his legal team the space and peaceful environment to carry out their duties.

“As we go about seeking redress for our stolen mandate, I plead with OBIdients to respect the sanctity of the Court premises and give our legal team the space and peaceful environment to carry out their duties.

“The court premises is not and should not be turned into a rally ground. I urge the Obidients to go about their businesses peacefully,” he said.

Obi and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, on Friday, secured leave of the court to have access to all the sensitive materials used by the INEC in the conduct of the election held on February 25.

However, INEC filed an application to vary the orders of the court.

Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) nominee for president, had requested a court order “restraining the 1st respondent (INEC) from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the due inspection is completed and certified true copies (CTC) of them issued” in an application.

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In the decision issued on Wednesday, a three-member panel of the court of appeal chaired by Joseph Ikyegh found that INEC would be prevented from holding the March 11 elections if the electoral commission were restrained.

Tanimu Inuwa, counsel to the INEC, spoke on Tuesday while moving an application seeking to vary the orders of the court which gave permission to Obi and Atiku to inspect all the sensitive materials used in the conduct of the presidential election held on February 25.

“Each polling unit has its own particular BVAS machine which we need to configure for the forthcoming elections,” he said.

“It will be very difficult for us, within the period, to reconfigure the 176,000 BVAS for the election.

“We have already stated in our affidavit that no information in the BVAS will be lost as we will transfer all the data in the BVAS to our backend server. Our backend server preserves the data.

“So, granting this application will be a clog in the process and disrupt the conduct of the elections.”

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