The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) has rejected the request by Peter Obi and his party, the Labour Party to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from tampering with information in respect of the February 25 presidential election, embedded in the BVAS machines until they conduct their inspection and certified true copy (CTC) is made available to them.
A three-member panel of the tribunal presided over by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, held, granting the such request would impede INEC’s preparation for the next round of elections using the BVAS machines.
Justice Haruna Tsammani, who read the lead ruling, said: “Prayer six has the effect of constraining or restricting the respondent from the use of the BVAS machines for any other purpose, and particularly considering the governorship and Houses of Assembly elections coming up on the 11th of March 2013.”
Justice Tsammani said the assurance by INEC that the information regarding voters’ accreditation, stored in the BVAS machines are safe Nd could not be tampered with when evacuated as stored in its accreditation backend server was not controverted or challenged by the applicants (Obi and LP).
He however ordered INEC to avail the applicants the CTC of the result of the physical inspection of the BVAS machines.”
INEC had, in its counter affidavit, stated that it needed to reconfigure the BVAS machines for the next round of elections.
It added that the process of
In his lead that the reconfiguration of the BVAS devices entails purging the accreditation data on the BVAS devices.
“The commission said accreditation data on the BVAS devices are uploaded to the Accreditation Backend Sever before the pumping is approved by the BVAS devices.”
Justice Tsammani noted that these averments by INEC were not controverted or challenged by the respondents.
Justice James Abundaga who delivered the lead ruling in the motion by INEC for the variation of the tribunal’s earlier orders, struck it out for being unmeritorious.
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Justice Abundaga said the apprehension expressed in the motion by INEC was unnecessary because the tribunal never granted any order for any applicant to scientific ally access the Electoral body’s database.
He said: “We made the orders of 3rf March 2023 which is sought to be varied by this application.
“The court did not in any of those orders authorised the applicants to access the database of the applicant (INEC).
“Therefore, the fear that the orders we made, if not varied, will expose the identities of the voters and who they cast their votes for is not genuine.
“We made the orders, very conscious of the court’s power to do so pursuant to the Electoral Act, particularly, Section 74 of the Act to enable the respondent herein (Obi and LP) to have simple access to electoral materials for the purpose of instituting and maintaining their petition if they ever wish to file any.
“We take judicial notice that similar applications to access electoral materials for the purpose of instituting petitions were made by other applicants.
“The respondents (Obi and LP) are hereby reminded, in case of any misapprehension by any of them, that the court did not, in any of those orders granted, authorise the applicants therein, the permission to electronically open the applicant’s (INEC”s) database.”
The tribunal applied the ruling to a similar application filed by INEC in respect of the orders for inspection earlier granted to Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In other rulings, delivered by Justice Ikyegh, the tribunal granted the request by the President-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) to inspect materials used for the February 25 presidential election.
The tribunal, in four rulings on Wednesday, granted the reliefs sought to by Tinubu and APC in the four ex-parte motions except prayers 5 and 6 in the motion filed by Tinubu, which relates to the scientific inspection of the BVAS.