INEC denies LP’s request to witness BVAS reconfiguration

The Labour Party (LP) has come under fire from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for asking to be present when the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System was reconfigured (BVAS).

This comes after the Abuja-based Court of Appeal on March 8 approved the electoral umpire’s request to modify the BVAS system used for the presidential election.

A three-member panel of judges came to the unanimous conclusion that preventing INEC from reconfiguring the voting machines would have a negative impact on the governorship and state assembly elections that were rescheduled for Saturday, March 18.

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In response to the ruling, Yunusa Tanko, Chief Spokesperson for the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, asked that LP be permitted to observe the reconfiguration of BVAS, which INEC claims would require backing up data gathered during the presidential election on February 25.

Tanko stated that the party no longer believed INEC could hold a free and fair election.

Are we allowed or invited to see what was being backed up? he questioned. If there is to be transparency, INEC must invite everyone and their technical experts to view the information the commission intends to support from the original source. Did this get done?

“It is obvious right away that INEC purposefully went to court for BVAS machine reconfiguration after Obi (the LP’s presidential candidate) requested to inspect election materials.

Of course, not even you and I are aware that the commission can currently come up with anything akin to reconfiguration. After we demanded to have those machines inspected, this was done.

Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, asserted that the reconfiguration of BVAS was a matter for the commission’s internal review and was not subject to scrutiny by political parties.

“I find it extremely odd that the Labour Party would express any interest in attending such an event. What do they want to see specifically? Would the party also be interested in seeing the design and printing of the ballots and result sheets?

Political parties were certainly free to observe a BVAS test run, and they did so during the dummy accreditation exercise we conducted prior to the general elections.

Oyekanmi compared it to students insisting on being present while their teachers are choosing the exam questions.

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The Inter-Party Advisory Council is something INEC “appreciates and maintains a very cordial relationship with, but the boundaries are well defined and known to both parties,” he continued.

The BVAS reset and data storage in the backup, according to Oyekanmi, would take “about three days” to complete.