INEC asks tribunal to vary inspection order granted Atiku, Obi

The Independent National Electoral Commission has urged the Presidential Election Petition Court to vary the orders that were granted to the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi respectively, to inspect materials used for the last presidential election.

INEC, in a motion on notice filed on March 4, is praying the court to vary the order which restrained it from tampering with materials used for the election.

The commission said it needed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for the next round of elections.

The appellate  court had on March 3, granted leave to Atiku of the PDP and Obi of Labour Party to inspect election materials used by INEC to conduct the February 25 presidential election.

The court granted the duo permission, following two separate ex parte applications filed by Atiku and Obi, who came second and third respectively in the presidential election won by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress.

In the  application filed by the commission and sighted by NAN, the commission is asking the court to vary the order to allow it to reconfigure its BVAS for the March 11 governorship and state houses of assembly elections.

NAN reports that it is the sole prayer in the application of the electoral umpire filed at the court.

No date has however been fixed for hearing of the application.

A credible source in the commission had told NAN 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.

Speaking off camera, the source said that the commission 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.

According to the source, considering the number of BVAS required to conduct the election across the states, INEC needs to reconfigure the BVAS used for the February 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.

The source said the order was pertinent as not getting it could result to a postponement of the Saturday governorship and state houses of assembly elections.

(Punch)