Reason Appeal Court Rejected Peter Obi’s Request To Stop INEC From Reconfiguring BVAS

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has rejected the request of candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission from reconfiguring the Bimodal Voters Accreditations machine.

Obi had approached the court to grant him access to the election materials used in the conduct of the February 25 presidential election. 

The former governor of Anambra State also begged the appellate court to stop the commission from going ahead with the reconfiguration of the machine in order to preserve the data and other information relating to the election.

Before now, INEC had approached the court for a permission to reconfigure the BVAS ahead of the Saturday governorship election.

The court however rejected Obi’s request in a ruling delivered on Wednesday in Abuja.

In its ruling the Court held that granting the request would jeopardize the electoral body’s conduct of the March 11 governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.

The Court also posited that information on accreditation contained in the BEVAS devices had been uploaded into its back up server and could be accessed at any time.

The Appellate Court predicated its agreement with INEC on the ground that all averments in the counter affidavit of the Electoral body were not challenged.

The Court said that granting the request of Obi and the Labour Party would tie down the hand of INEC in the conduct of the Saturday’s gubernatorial election.