Election Materials: Appeal court rules on application to vary order, March 8

By Vivian Okejeme Abuja

The Appeal Court will Wednesday, deliver ruling on the application by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, seeking it to vary its order granted on Labour Party and People’s Democratic Party to access materials used for 2023 presidential poll.

A three-man panel of the Appallete court fixed date to rule on the matter after listening to the arguments of the parties involved.

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.

Adopting their written addresses and other documents as their brief of arguments, the electoral body asked the court to grant the application.

When asked by the court 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.”

Also they want the order to inspect election sensitive materials varied in accordance with Section 122 of the Electoral Act, 2022.

In his argument, counsel to Labour Party and Peter Obi, Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN, adopted all the written addresses and counter affidavit, filed and dated 6th March as his argument and asked the court to dismiss the application.

On the application to inspect the BVAS, Mr Peter Obi is seeking for an order for a physical inspection of the machine to enable him conduct a forensic investigation.

Ikpeazu also submitted that LP is also seeking to obtain the certified true copies of the material as well as ensure the evidences are present before they are configured.

Recall that the appellate court had on March 3, granted leave to Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Mr Peter Obi of Labour Party(LP) to inspect election materials used by INEC to conduct the Feb. 25 presidential election.

However, 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.

INEC maintained 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.

Speaking further, 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.

The source said that the technical team of the commission had to be deployed on time to start the reconfiguration of the devices, which had to be done one by one.

He maintained that discarding the ex-parte order was important, adding that not getting it could result to a postponement of the Saturday governorship and state houses of assembly elections.