THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has concluded the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used for the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The reconfigured machines will be used for the upcoming state governorship and assembly elections scheduled for March 18.
According to Daily Trust newspaper, one of the Commission’s senior officials said the sensitive election materials will be deployed to INEC state offices before deployment to local governments, wards, and polling units on election day.
The unnamed official also noted that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) is leading the airlift of the BVAS machines to further enhance their security and efficiency of deployment.
The polls had earlier been scheduled to last week but were shifted to this week due to the INEC’s inability to complete the re-configuration exercise.
The Presidential Election Tribunal in Nigeria has issued an order restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from tampering with sensitive materials used during the presidential election. The request for the order was made by the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, respectively.
The candidates, who came in second and third in the election, rejected the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Tinubu, and called for another election or for themselves to be declared the winner.
The opposition candidates approached the court seeking permission to inspect all sensitive materials used during the election and to restrain INEC from tampering with them. The court granted their request, and as a result, the Presidential Election Tribunal issued an order restraining INEC from tampering with all sensitive materials, including the BVAS.
However, INEC later requested permission to reconfigure the BVAS, which was only granted two days before the scheduled date of the governorship election. The order was issued amidst concerns about the transparency and credibility of the election process in Nigeria. The outcome of the governorship election remains to be seen.
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