Peter Gregory Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), has newly filed an application to physically inspect all Bimodal Voter Accreditation Systems (BVAS) used for the conduct of the February 25 election.
Obi and his Party sought permission with the application marked CA/PEC/09m/23, at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Wednesday.
Through their team of lawyers led by Onyechi Ikpeazu, Obi and the LP noted the essence of the application was to enable them extract data embedded in the BVAS, “which represent the actual results from Polling Units”.
They specifically applied for; “leave to carry out a digital forensic and physical inspection of BVAS, etc”, as well as to obtain the Certified True Copy (CTC) of all BVAS data.
“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.”
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However, the legal team of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) opposed the application filed by Obi on BVAS deployed in the presidential poll.
The electoral body urged the court to dismiss the fresh application by Obi and the LP, insisting that granting the request will affect its preparations for the impending March 11 elections.
Meanwhile, after listening to all parties, a three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Joseph Ikyegh, adjourned all the applications till today for a ruling.
Recall that the panel had in a ruling it delivered last Friday, granted Obi and Atiku access to all sensitive materials deployed by INEC for the conduct of the presidential election.
The duo maintained that the requested documents would aid their petition against the outcome of the presidential contest that was declared in favour of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
More so, Obi and Atiku obtained an order from the court granting them leave to file the application, outside or before the pre-hearing session of the planned substantive petitions.
