Labour Party (LP) has expressed displeasure over the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow lawyers of the LP inspect materials on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal used for the February 25 presidential election.
Julius Abure, National Chairman of LP, said on Saturday that despite a decision by the presidential election tribunal sitting in the Appeal Court, which mandated INEC to do so, the electoral umpire has refused to grant the lawyers the permission
The LP had earlier faulted the request by the electoral umpire, to the tribunal, to grant it permission to reconfigure the BVAS that were used for the presidential poll.
The court had, in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of Justices, dismissed objection by the LP and held that preventing the electoral umpire from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the forthcoming governorship and state Assembly elections.
The Appeal Court also refused to grant the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, an application to scan and make copies of the election materials from INEC‘s database, stressing that granting the order would hamper the elections earlier slated for Saturday, 11 March.
The Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led panel faulted Obi and the LP for repeating their request to be allowed to scan and make copies of the electoral materials in INEC’s possession, and held that granting the order would amount to preventing it from carrying out the functions assigned to it by the 1999 constitution
It will be recalled that the court ordered INEC on March 3 to allow the three leading political parties, the Labour Party (LP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to inspect and conduct digital forensic examination on all electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections.
The Tribunal also asked the Commission to avail the applicants of the Certified True Copy (CTC) of result of the physical inspection of the BVAS.
According to the Election Petition Tribunal, the request was earlier granted, even as it scolded the petitioners against repeating the prayer, saying that it amounted to an abuse of court process.
The electoral umpire insisted that the reconfiguration of the BVAS was necessary since they would be deployed for the Saturday’s election, pointing out that without a prompt variation of the order, the court earlier granted to Obi and the presidential candidate of PDP, Atiku Abubakar, especially the aspect restraining it from tampering with information contained in the BVAS.
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