Counsel to Labour Party and Peter Obi, its presidential candidate, Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN, has urged the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division to dismiss an application by the Independent National Electoral Commission, seeking to vary its earlier order granted the LP and Peoples Democratic Party to access and conduct physical inspection of materials used for the 2023 presidential poll.
The appellate court had upon two separate ex parte applications on March 3, granted leave to presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party to inspect the election materials used by INEC to conduct the February 25 presidential election.
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Not happy with the order, INEC, on March 6, approached the court, asking it to vary the order to enable it reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the March 11, governorship and state houses of assembly elections.
However, Atiku, PDP, Obi and LP have insisted that INEC must not be allowed to tamper with the BIVAS and election materials.
Obi said the order for physical inspection of the BIVAS machine will enable him conduct a forensic investigation.
Ikpeazu also submitted that LP is seeking to obtain the certified true copies of the material as well as ensure the evidences are present before they are configured.
On Tuesday, a 3-man panel of the Appeal Court heard the application by INEC, and subsequently fixed Wednesday for ruling.
INEC, had through it’s counsel, Tanimu Enuwa SAN, informed the court of it’s motion on notice and a written addresses filed and dated 6th March as well as an affidavit and exhibits attached to substantiate their application.
When asked by the court on how they want the order varied, INEC maintained that their affidavit demonstrated the effect the order will have on the coming election.
“We will run into constitutional crises if you have the elections conducted outside the constitutional time.”
More so, the INEC lawyer submitted that they want the order to inspect election sensitive materials varied in accordance with Section 122 of the Electoral Act, 2022.
INEC pointed out that the application became necessary following an order restraining it from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them were issued.
He said INEC would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the election that would take place in the 36 states of the federation excluding the FCT.
He said the number of BVAS required to conduct the election across the states, INEC needs to reconfigure the BVAS used for the Feb. 25 elections and deploy them to polling units for the March 11 elections.
INEC maintained that setting aside the ex-parte order was important, adding that not getting it could result to a postponement of Saturday’s governorship and state houses of assembly elections.