Peter Obi storms tribunal, awaits ruling on INEC’s BVAS request
Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, has stormed the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, to await ruling on request by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to be allowed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, it used for the presidential election.
Obi arrived the tribunal in the company of some of his supporters, among whom was the Senator-elect for Anambra Central Senatorial District, Chief Victor Umeh.
The tribunal is expected to also rule on request by the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, to be granted access to sensitive materials INEC used for the presidential election that held on February 25.
Both Obi and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, had urged the court to refuse INEC’s request.
For Saturday’s elections
INEC had insisted that the reconfiguration was necessary since the BVAS would also be deployed for the next round of elections, starting with governorship and state assemblies elections billed for Saturday, as well as other rescheduled elections.
It maintained that without a prompt variation of the order the court earlier granted to Obi and Atiku, especially the aspect restraining it from tampering with information contained in the BVAS, it would be difficult for it to proceed with the scheduled elections.
However, Obi and his party, in a fresh application marked: CA/PEC/09m/23, also sought permission to be allowed to conduct physical inspection of all the BVAS that were used for the presidential poll.
Obi and the LP, through their team of lawyers led by Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), said the essence of their application was to enable them to extract data embedded in the BVAS, “which represent the actual results from Polling Units”.
They specifically applied for; “leave to carryout digital forensic and physical inspection of BVAS, etc”, as well as to obtain the Certified True Copy, CTC, of all the data in the BVAS.
“My Lords, this is to ensure that the evidence is preserved before the BVAS are reconfigured by INEC.
“This is because if they are wiped out, it will affect the substance of our case,” Ikpeazu (SAN), added.
Election
INEC had declared Tinubu of the APC as winner of the presidential poll, ahead of 17 other candidates that contested the election.
According to INEC, Tinubu, scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Obi of the LP who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
However, both PDP and the LP rejected the outcome of the election and vowed to challenge it in court.
Court refuses Peter Obi’s request to stop INEC from reconfiguring BVAS
The court of appeal has refused the request of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from reconfiguring the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) ahead of the governorship and state assembly elections.
In the ruling delivered on Wednesday, a three-member panel of the court of appeal led by Joseph Ikyegh, held that restraining the electoral commission would constrain INEC from conducting the March 11 elections.
In an application, Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), had sought an order of the court “restraining the 1st respondent (INEC) from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the due inspection is conducted and certified true copies (CTC) of them issued.”
I remain committed to mission of retrieving our mandate – Peter Obi
Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi said he remained committed to the mission of retrieving his mandate.
Obi stated this in a statement he issued via his verified Twitter handle on Wednesday.
The tweet reads, “I remain committed and will give more attention to our mission of retrieving our mandate. A new Nigeria is possible! -PO.
“It is also imperative that Obidients vote for candidates with Competence, Character, Capacity, and Compassion,” he added.
On the party’s campaign for state assembly and governorship election, Obi stated, “I am supposed to commence our whistle-stop campaign for our various Labour Party Governorship and State Assembly Candidates today. Initially, my trip was to take me to Nasarawa, Lagos, Enugu, Abia, Delta, Edo, Rivers, Plateau, Borno, etc.
“However, following INEC’s refusal to allow our party to inspect the materials (including BVAS) from the 25th February presidential elections, I am personally heading to the Court today with our lawyers.
“As we pursue due process and defer to the rule of law, I urge all the OBIdients in the various states to continue campaigning for our candidates, namely, Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour in Lagos, Chijoke Edeoga in Enugu, Patrick Dakum in Plateau, Alex Otti in Abia, Ken Pela in Delta, Ibrahim Mshelia in Borno, to name just a few.”
Breaking: INEC postpones governorship, state assembly elections to March 18
Emerging reports indicate that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has postponed Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections to March 18, 2023.
INEC’s decision is coming a few days before the March 11 date which was earlier scheduled for the state elections.
A top INEC official who made the disclosure known to our correspondent in Abuja today revelaed that the postponement was due to the inability of the commission to commence the re-configuration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used for the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, to enable their use for the state elections.
Recall Vanguard had on Monday exclusively reported that the elections could be postponed, except the appellate court reversed itself on relief it granted the Presidential Candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party LP counterpart, Peter Obi.
3 days to election, gunmen burn houses of Imo PDP candidate
Owerri- Ahead of this week, Saturday’s House of Assembly elections unidentified gunmen on Tuesday set ablaze the houses, and vehicles of the state assembly candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the Okigwe state constituency, Ifeanyi Ozoemena, at Umuokparaoha, Umulolo community in the Okigwe council area of Imo state.
Eyewitnesses who disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri said the gunmen attacked the houses with explosives at about 1:30 pm.
On the reason for the attack, they claimed to be politically motivated and accused a group of political thugs whose assignment they said had been to attack the candidates of political parties in the area.
They also boosted that Ozoemena was attacked to cut down his political fortunes ahead of this week’s Saturday elections.
On the level of the attack, they said the PDP candidate family members were able to escape.
Before the presidential/National Assembly elections, it was gathered that the burning of houses, and killings, have become almost a daily occurrence in the Okigwe local government area. Mostly affected were candidates of political parties.
At the time of filing this report, the Imo State Police Command was yet to respond to the matter.
But the PDP, state Publicity Secretary, Collins Opurozor, confirmed the incident s d: “It is part of the continued attack on our candidates, in Imo state, just like we have been saying it for the world to hear us. Many of our House of Representatives candidates were attacked, and Senators and their houses were burnt.”
Stay tuned for more updates on the Nigerian Election 🤗
Do share page using the share button👇to friends and families if found helpful
Comments
Post a Comment