A three-member panel of justices unanimously decided that preventing the electoral umpire from reconfiguring the BVAS would have a negative impact on the upcoming governorship and State Assembly elections.
It overruled the Labour Party and Peter Obi, its presidential candidate,’s objections to the request.
The court said that granting Obi and his party’s objections would be like “tying the hands of the Respondent, INEC.”
The court ruled that the server’s backup files cannot be lost and that restraining INEC will have an impact on the upcoming governorship elections, despite LP and Obi’s objections.
The panel’s chairman, Justice Joseph Ikyegh, reprimanded the applicants for repeating their request for permission to scan and make copies of INEC’s electoral materials, calling it an abuse of process.
It noticed that INEC had in an affirmation documented under the watchful eye of the court, guaranteed that the authorization information contained in the BVAS couldn’t be altered or lost.
In addition, it stated that neither Obi nor LP challenged the argument in INEC’s affidavit in a counter affidavit.
However, the court ordered INEC to grant the applicants access to the Certified True Copy of the physical inspection of the BVAS and to allow them to inspect and conduct digital forensic examinations of all election materials.
INEC has assured that the BVAS data used in the presidential election on February 25 are accurate.
Tanimu Inuwa, the lead counsel for the electoral commission, gave the assurance on Tuesday at the Court of Appeal in Abuja while opposing a Labour Party presidential candidate’s application regarding BVAS used in the election.
In support of the application, Inuwa argued that it would delay the scheduled Saturday elections for governorship and houses of assembly.
Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, Obi’s lead attorney, had previously argued that the application’s primary purpose was to permit the legal team to extract data embedded in the BVAS, “which represent the actual results from polling units.”
The lawyers for Obi also made a request for a certified true copy of all of the data in the BVAS.
“My lords, this is to guarantee that the evidence is preserved prior to INEC’s reconfiguration of the BVAS.” This is due to the fact that “the substance of the case will be affected if they are eliminated,” Ikpeazu added.
However, INEC’s team of lawyers, led by Inuwa and consisting of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, urged the court to deny the application.
INEC insisted that granting Obi’s request would have an impact on its preparations for the upcoming elections for governor and houses of assembly.
BVAS machines During the presidential election, approximately 176, 000 BVAS machines were installed in polling units, according to the court.
“We must configure each polling unit’s individual BVAS machine for the upcoming elections. We will have a very difficult time reconfiguring the 176,000 BVAS within the allotted time.
“We have already stated in our affidavit that we will transfer all of the data in the BVAS to our backend server, which means that no information in the BVAS will be lost.