Our reporter| The Court of Appeal, Abuja, has turned down the request of the Labour Party’s Presidential candidate, Peter Obi seeking to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from reconfiguring the BVAS equipment used for the conduct of the February 25 Presidential election.
The Court held that granting the request would jeopardize the electoral body in the conduct of the March 11 governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.
The Court agreed with INEC that information on accreditation contained in the BVAS 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 Saturday’s gubernatorial election.
The Court further held that the claims of INEC that information on the BVAS devices cannot be tampered with during uploading was not attacked by Obi and as such, deemed authentic.
The appeal court, however, mandated INEC to allow the applicants to inspect and carry out a digital forensic examination of the electoral materials used to conduct the polls and also avail them of the certified true copy of the result of the physical inspection of the BVAS.
The court also granted the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu’s request to inspect election materials for the February 25th exercise.
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