The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has filed a suit at the Presidential Election Petition Court seeking permission to allow its officials reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines ahead of the March 11 governorship and State Assembly elections
The suit, dated March 4, was filed against an earlier order of the Presidential Election Tribunal, which gave the Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the leverage to inspect election materials following allegations of widespread electoral malpractice committed against their candidates, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, respectively.
The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on February 3, granted the request of Obi and Atiku to have access to all the sensitive materials INEC deployed for the conduct of the presidential election held on February 25.
But, INEC urged the Tribunal to vary that order, contending that such a restraining order will limit its ability to conduct the forthcoming governorship and State Assembly elections on March 11.
The Commission said it needs to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the next round of elections.