Peter Obi Files Fresh Application To Inspect BVAS Used For Presidential Poll

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has filed a fresh application to physically inspect all the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used for the presidential election.

In the fresh application marked: CA/PEC/09m/23 at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Wednesday, Obi and his party sought permission to be allowed to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS used for the presidential poll.

Obi and LP, through their team of lawyers led by Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, said the essence of the application is to enable them to 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 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.”

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) legal team opposed the application filed by Obi on BVAS deployed in the presidential poll.

INEC 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 Governorship and National Assembly elections.

However, after it had listened to all the parties, a three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Justice 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 the nod to have access to all the sensitive materials the INEC deployed 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 APC, 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.

INEC had declared Tinubu of the APC as the 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.

Both PDP and LP had since rejected the outcome of the election and vowed to challenge it in court.