The 2023 Governorship and State Assembly elections scheduled for the 11th of March, 2023 are faced with a potential postponed.
This is owing to a relief granted to the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi by the appellate court.
Daily Report Nigeria recalls that the court last week stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from tampering with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) deployed during the elections held on the 25th of February, 2023.
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Obi had in his application moved by his team of lawyers, led by Mr Alex Ejesieme, SAN, sought six principal reliefs, while Atiku’s lawyer, Adedamola Faloku, sought seven prayers from the tribunal.
Among the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs was: An order granting the applicants permission to do electronic scanning and make photocopies of voter’s registration, and ballot papers used in the conduct of the election for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria held on the 25th day of February 2023.
“An order granting leave to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the 25th February 2023 election for the Office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The plaintiffs also sought an order restraining “the First Respondent from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them issued”.
The court granted the reliefs and with regards to the BVAS, said; “That leave is hereby granted to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the 25th February 2023 Election for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
INEC will have to reconfigure the BVAS if they would be used for the governorship and state assembly elections.
A source that spoke with Vanguard disclosed that reconfiguration of BVAS takes an average of five days.
The source who spoke on condition of anonymity said INEC would be approaching the courts to vacate the order.
He said, “There are over 176,000 polling units. The BVAS is polling units specific, which means that you cannot do a mass reconfiguration. The machines have to be reconfigured individually and those take an average of five days.
“If we leave the BVAS as the court has ordered, it simply means that we cannot use them for the state elections. So, we are approaching the court to seek a way out”.
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