The Independent National Electoral Commission requested permission to modify the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, which was used for the recently ended presidential election. The Court of Appeal, Abuja has set Wednesday as the day to examine the application’s merit.
Judge Joseph High postponed making a decision on the case until Wednesday after the parties were heard by the three-person court panel.
The goal of the program, according to Obi and LP’s legal team, led by Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, was to allow them to access data that was encoded in the BVAS and “reflect the actual results from Polling Units.”
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They both submitted applications to get a Certified True Copy of all the data in the BVAS.
“My lords, this is to make sure the evidence is kept when INEC reconfigures the BVAS. This is so that the case’s content won’t be affected if they are eliminated,” Ikpeazu, SAN, continued.
However, INEC pleaded with the court to reject the case through a team of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, led by Mr. Tanimu Inuwa.
Obi and LP’s plea would have an impact on INEC’s ability to prepare for the upcoming governorship and state assembly elections, INEC insisted.
Approximately 176 000 BVAS were deployed to voting places during the presidential election, it said the court.
“Each polling place has a unique BVAS machine that we must set up for the next elections.
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“Reconfiguring the 176, 000 BVAS within the allotted time will be quite challenging for us.
“We have already claimed in our affidavit that no information in the BVAS would be lost since we will move all the data in the BVAS to our backend server.
“We must configure the BVAS. Thus, allowing this application would slow down the procedure and possibly cause the polls to be delayed, urged INEC’s attorney, Inuwa, SAN.