The Court of Appeal has refused to grant the prayer of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), seeking to stop the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS).
The appellate court refused to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from reconfiguring the BVAS ahead of the governorship and state assembly elections.
In the ruling delivered yesterday, a three-member panel of the court of appeal led by Joseph Ikyegh, held that restraining the electoral commission would impede INEC from conducting the March 11 elections.
In an application, Obi had sought an order of the court “restraining the 1st respondent (INEC) from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the due inspection is conducted and certified true copies (CTC) of them issued”.
The Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led panel faulted Obi and LP for repeating their request to be allowed to scan and make copies of the electoral materials in INEC’s possession, noting that the request was earlier granted, the panel held that repeating the prayer amounted to an abuse of court process.
Recall that INEC had insisted that the reconfiguration of the BVAS was necessary since they would be deployed for the next round of elections, insisting that no data would be lost while configuring BVAS ahead of the elections.
