According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System used for the February 25 presidential election contains accurate information.
On Tuesday at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Tanimu Inuwa, the lead attorney for the electoral commission, offered the guarantee in opposition to a request made by Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, over the use of BVAS during the presidential election.
Inuwa, who opposed the application, claimed it would cause the gubernatorial and houses of assembly elections, set for Saturday, to be postponed.
Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, the principal attorney for Obi, had earlier stated that the application’s main purpose was to make it possible for the legal team to retrieve data from the BVAS “which represent the actual results from polling stations.”
The attorneys for Obi also submitted a request to have a certified true copy of all the information in the BVAS.
“My lords, the purpose of this is to protect the evidence before INEC reconfigures the BVAS. This is so that the content of the case won’t be affected if they are eliminated, Ikpeazu continued.
However, INEC urged the court to reject the application through a team of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, led by Inuwa.
Obi’s plea, according to INEC, will have an impact on its planning for the upcoming elections for the governor and houses of assembly.
BVAS devices
It informed the court that during the presidential election, around 176 000 BVAS devices were placed in polling places.
“Each polling location has a unique BVAS machine that we must set up for the next elections. We will have a very difficult time rearranging the 176,000 BVAS within the given time frame.
“We have already affirmed in our affidavit that we will move all of the BVAS’s data to our backend server, ensuring that none of the data will be lost.
“The BVAS must be set up. Thus, allowing this application would slow down the process and perhaps cause the polls to be delayed, said INEC’s attorney, Inuwa, SAN.
Judge Joseph Ikyegh delayed making a decision on the case until Wednesday after hearing from the parties.
The court granted the restraining order in the decision it made on Friday allowing the Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar and Obi to view the delicate materials used to conduct the election on February 25.
Both Atiku and Obi were given permission to contest the election results, which they claimed were tainted by fraud and other issues.
The All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Tinubu, was proclaimed the winner of the poll by INEC on March 1, but the PDP and the LP candidates are appealing the results.
They subsequently submitted separate ex parte papers, pleading for permission to inspect private information used by INEC to conduct the presidential election.
However, INEC requested a modification to the court’s order prohibiting it from tampering with election-related materials in a motion on the notice it submitted on March 4.
For the next elections, which will take place on Saturday, the commission stated that the BVAS needs to be reconfigured.
PDP supports LP
The PDP has meanwhile vowed to back Obi’s lawsuit on the preservation of the BVAS data.
The PDP shares the Labour Party’s position on the matter, according to Ibrahim Abdullahi, the party’s deputy national publicity secretary, who was speaking to The PUNCH on Tuesday.
“The PDP and the Labour Party have established a cooperative alliance,” he declared. The PDP is expressing the same dissatisfaction with the election that the LP did. We are both dissatisfied with the results of the election on February 25 since some of the hopes the LP had for the electoral process were shared by the PDP.
“What the Labour Party produces is the result of coordinated work and cooperation with the
PDP. The Labour Party never speaks without first consulting the PDP because we’ve come to the conclusion that speaking together is the only way to move forward and apply pressure to the system. We are fighting this oddity together.
Also, the publicity secretary urged the electoral umpire to respond to the concerns voiced by concerned Nigerians and election observation organizations rather than lying that it performed well during the presidential election.
According to him, Nigerians are likely to take INEC’s assurances that Saturday’s governorship election will be different with a grain of salt unless the flaws of the presidential election are corrected.
Rufus Aiyenigba, national publicity secretary for the Social Democratic Party, acknowledged that the circumstance might provide difficulties for the electoral commission.
He said, “This is now beyond the party to consolidate democracy, so we just trust that things will go well in the sake of the country.
“We pray that this won’t affect the election schedule, but the truth is that if INEC follows
They will undoubtedly be impacted by the current situation since the BVAS must be protected. It is necessary to keep all of the data there. Some of the BVAS devices are broken, some are not functioning, and so on.
The All Progressives Grand Alliance believes that national interests should take precedence over individual interests.
Victor Oye, the party’s national chairman, stated, “The court knows what to do. Yet, national interests take precedence over narrow, self-serving ones.
Ladipo Johnson, the chief spokesperson for the New Nigerian Peoples Party’s presidential campaign committee, refuted INEC’s assertions that Obi’s lawsuit may jeopardize the election, saying that the body was lying.
He asserts that INEC cannot honestly say that it hasn’t backed up the election data to its servers and that doing so by now would indicate incompetence on the side of the organization.
“Obi or Atiku’s suit is not threatening anything,” he said. They are unable to confirm that the data is backed up to a server, which is the fact of the matter. That is necessary. If it isn’t, they are less skilled than we initially believed. Let them review the information.
They just want that, so please show us where it was uploaded.
“INEC ought to speak up and be honest. If they have nothing to hide, let them let you look through their books. Machines from BVAS would copy. These weren’t being uploaded elsewhere, right?
Johnson continued by charging that the electoral body was pandering to the crowd, claiming that the plaintiffs’ request in the lawsuit had nothing to do with the voting on March 11.
“What INEC is trying to do is evade the rule of law and flee from delivering information,” he continued.
the truth about the manipulation and charade that happened on February 25.
According to sources, INEC is attempting to conceal the evidence against them. There won’t be any remnants of the information related to the presidential election after they alter the BVAS. And to that, we replied, “No.”
He continued, “They must show proof of the February 25 election before we will let BVAS to be altered. INEC ought to be aware that their actions could result in legal action.
“If such were the case, the BVAS machine would stand as our strongest piece of evidence against INEC. They can criticize other voting devices for the next election unless INEC has something to conceal.
In a similar incident, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, a coalition of over 80 human rights organizations, has expressed worry about INEC’s assertions that the BVAS needed to be redesigned before the upcoming round of elections.
This could “further pose additional credibility problems regarding the integrity and conduct of the 2023 general elections,” the coalition cautioned, while urging the commission to make clear what is meant by this.
The issues were brought up in a statement released on Tuesday night by the Conveners of NCSSR, Ene Obi, Asma’u Joda, and James Ugochukwu.
The preservation of the data gathered during the presidential and National Assembly elections was a concern for the organization.
The Independent National Electoral Commission should make clear to the general public how it intends to guarantee that the data gathered in the BVAS utilized in the election will be retained for use in the review and audit of the elections, according to the statement.
“Information gathered during elections must be retained for use in the audit and review of the election as well as for accountability purposes in order for there to be effective electoral accountability. Situation Room is requesting INEC to make sure that its documents and data linked to the election are stored safely and securely to ensure their usage for inspection and accountability in view of the disputes that have surfaced and the controversy surrounding the general elections of 2023.
“Reports suggesting that the BVAS might need to be modified or even deleted for the upcoming State Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections due on Saturday, March 11 2023 is a serious cause for concern, and we worry that this could further pose additional credibility questions over the integrity and conduct of the 2023 general elections.”
However, Bala Ibrahim, the APC’s director of publicity, supported INEC’s request to restructure the BVAS.
“The umpire is INEC. We shall be prepared to go if INEC orders you to show up for the election. Obviously, the BVAS needs to be updated because it was set up for the presidential election and needs to be updated for the elections for governor and state assemblies.
