THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has criticised Labour Party (LP) for requesting to witness the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
This is coming after the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday, March 8, gave the electoral umpire nod to reconfigure BVAS used for the presidential election.
In a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of justices, the court held that stopping INEC from re-configuring the electoral devices would adversely affect governorship and state assemblies elections rescheduled for Saturday, March 18.
Reacting to the judgment, the Chief Spokesperson for the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Yunusa Tanko requested that LP be allowed to witness the reconfiguration of BVAS that INEC claims would require backing up data collected during February 25 presidential poll.
Tanko noted that the party had lost confidence in INEC’s capacity to conduct a free and fair election.
He said; “Are we privy or invited to see what was being backed up? If there is going to be transparency, what INEC needs to do is to invite everybody with their technological experts to see what the commission intends to back up from the original source. Was this done?
“It is clear right from the beginning that INEC deliberately went to court for reconfiguration of the BVAS machines after Obi (LP’s presidential candidate) requested to inspect election materials.
“Of course, nobody, not even you and I, know the commission can come up with anything like reconfiguration at this time. This was done after we demanded to inspect those machines”.
However, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, said reconfiguration of BVAS was an internal affair of the commission and not open to inspection by political parties.
“It is really curious that the Labour Party would express any desire to witness such an activity. What exactly do they want to see? Would the party also want to witness when ballot papers and result sheets are designed and printed?
“Of course, political parties are free to witness a test-run of the BVAS, and they did during the mock accreditation exercise that we carried out before the general elections.
“It is like students demanding to be present when their teachers are determining examination questions,” Oyekanmi said.
He added that while INEC “appreciates and maintains a very cordial relationship with the Inter-Party Advisory Council, the boundaries are well defined and known to both parties”.
Oyekanmi said it would take the electoral umpire “about three days” to complete BVAS reset and storage of data in the back-up.
Sinafi Omanga is a multimedia journalist and researcher with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. He has a keen interest in humanitarian reporting, social justice, and environment.
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these people are carrying their naivety and impetuosity too far. they want probably tobe part of the internal functions of INEC. but it’s not their fault, INEC had promised a level of performance beyond their capacity, they planned mindless of Nigerian capacity for frustrating an orherwise excellent intentions.