Appeals Court denies Peter Obi’s request to scan election materials from INEC’s database
Peter Obi’s request to scan and copy election materials from INEC’s database was denied by the appeals court on Wednesday.
The three-member panel concluded that granting obi’s request for an order would interfere with the elections that are scheduled for Saturday.
Obi and the Labour Party, LP, was criticized by Justice Joseph Ikyegh-headed panel for repeatedly requesting permission to scan and copy the electoral materials INEC is in possession of.
The court determined that granting the order would amount to tying the electoral body’s hands and preventing it from performing the duties outlined in the 1999 constitution.
The court ordered INEC to permit the applicants to inspect and conduct a digital forensic analysis of all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections on March 3.
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additionally to provide them with the Certified True Copy, CTC, of the findings from the BVAS’s physical inspection.
The panel concluded that the request had already been granted and that repeating the prayer amounted to an abuse of the legal system.
Since the BVAS would be used in the Saturday election’s second round, INEC had insisted that the reconfiguration of the BVAS was required.
The commission added that without a prompt modification of the order, the court earlier granted to Obi and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, especially the part prohibiting it from tampering with the information contained in the BVAS.
It would be challenging for it to carry out the scheduled elections. INEC was additionally.
Obi and his party asked for permission to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS that were utilized for the presidential election in their application, which was designated CA/PEC/09m/23.
Through a group of attorneys led by Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, the applicants claimed that the main goal of the application was to enable them to extract data from the BVAS “which represent the actual results from Polling Units.”
They specifically requested “leave to conduct a digital forensic and physical inspection of BVAS, among others,” as well as to obtain the Certified True Copy, CTC, of all the data in the BVAS.”
When arguing against the application, INEC informed the court that a total of 176,000 BVAS had been deployed to polling places during the presidential election through the representation of Tanimu Inuwa, SAN.
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“Each polling location has a unique BVAS machine that needs to be set up for the upcoming elections.
“Reconfiguring the 176, 000 BVAS within the allotted time will be very challenging for us.
“We already stated in our affidavit that no data in the BVAS will be lost.
“The BVAS must be reconfigured.
“So, granting this application will be a cog in the process and may delay the conduct of the elections,” Mr. Inuwa argued.
