Obi returns to Court over BVAS reconfiguration
The Court of Appeal in Abuja was filled to capacity as it’s set to rule on an application filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, seeking it to vary its order granted on Labour Party and People’s Democratic Party to access materials used for the 2023 presidential poll.
Although the scheduled time for the ruling was slated for 2pm but as at the time of filing this report, the panel of justices had not arrived.
The presidential candidate for the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, the National Chairman of LP, Mr. Julius Agbura and the Senator Elect representing Anambra Central Senatorial District Anambra state, Senator Victor Umeh, including International Observers all were present in court
The appellate court had granted leave to Mr Obi to inspect the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines and other sensitive materials that INEC deployed for the conduct of the 25 February poll.
The court also restrained INEC from tampering with the BVAS machines but INEC approached the appellate court to vary the orders.
The electoral umpire explained that it needed to reconfigure the BVAS machines and redeploy them for this Saturday, 11 March’s governorship and state parliamentary election.
At the last proceeding, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal led by Joseph Ikyegh slated today for ruling after taking arguments from counsels to INEC and Mr Obi.
Ifeoma Nwovu; Editing by Julian Osamoto