The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has on Wednesday granted the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System otherwise (BVAS) ahead of Saturday’s governorship elections.
The electoral body earlier prayed the court to put aside a request by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of PDP and Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) to inspect the BVAS after alleging that the exercise held on February 25 was marred by irregularities and the materials would help prove their evidence before the court.
A three-member panel of judges led by Joseph Ikyegh ruled that INEC can proceed to conduct the governorship election on Saturday, March 11. The court ordered INEC to record the information contained in the BVAS device and store it in a secure location in addition to placing a copy in its database.
The appellate court ordered INEC to store the information contained in the BVAS device and store it in a secure location in addition to placing a copy in its database.
Before today’s ruling, the court granted the duo access to inspect the election materials used in the Presidential polls.
INEC had appealed against the move that grants Atiku and Obi permission to inspect materials used in the last Saturday polls.
INEC argued that the move will impact the upcoming governorship election.
