Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, will be at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, over his party’s legal quest to inspect Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines and other electoral materials deployed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.
“Following INEC’s refusal to allow our party to inspect the materials (including BVAS) from the 25th February presidential elections, I am personally heading to the court today with our lawyers,” Obi tweeted early Wednesday.
The former governor of Anambra State said he remained committed and would give more attention to his mission to retrieve his mandate.
“As we pursue due process and defer to the rule of law, I urge all the Obidients in the various states to continue campaigning for our candidates, namely, Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour in Lagos, Chijoke Edeoga in Enugu, Patrick Dakum in Plateau, Alex Otti in Abia, Ken Pela in Delta, Ibrahim Mshelia in Borno, to name just a few. It is also imperative that Obidients vote for candidates with Competence, Character, Capacity, and Compassion,” he added.
However, following INEC’s refusal to allow our party to inspect the materials (including BVAS) from the 25th February presidential elections, I am personally heading to the Court today with our lawyers.
‘Court Premises Not Rally Ground’
He warned Obidients not to turn the court premises into a rally ground but respect the sanctity of the court and allow the legal team to carry out their duties.
As we go about seeking redress for our stolen mandate, I plead with OBIdients to respect the sanctity of the Court premises and give our legal team the space and peaceful environment to carry out their duties.
— Peter Obi (@PeterObi) March 8, 2023
The Court of Appeal on Tuesday slated Wednesday (today) to rule on the application by INEC to be allowed to reconfigure BVAS machines deployed in the over 170,000 polling units for the February 25 elections.
A three-member panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh also adjourned to rule on the application filed by the LP and Obi to be allowed to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS that was used for the poll.
Counsel for Obi, Onyechi Ikpeazu, said the essence of the application was to enable them to extract data embedded in the BVAS, which represented the actual results from polling units.
Ikpeazu, prayed the court to allow them to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS that was used for the presidential election, as this is to ensure that the evidence is preserved before the BVAS are reconfigured by INEC.
He added that if they are wiped out, it will affect the substance of the case.
Counsel for INEC, Tanimu Inuwa, however, urged the court to refuse the application, insisting that granting the request by Obi and the LP would affect its preparations for the impending governorship and state assembly elections.
12 SANs In Peter Obi’s Legal Team Revealed As Appeal Court Rules On BVAS
The Court of Appeal in Abuja is set to rule on the application filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) it used to conduct the 2023 presidential election, up which held on Saturday, February 27, 2023.
The court has set Wednesday, March 8, 2023, for the eagerly awaited ruling.
The legal team of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, a party in the suit, moved a motion requesting the court not to allow INEC to tamper with the evidence in the matter going to the Presidential Election Tribunal.
According to our findings, Obi’s legal team include at least twelve Senior Advocates of Nigeria. Some of them presented in order of seniority are Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN; Chief Awa Kalu, SAN; Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN; P.I.N. Ikwueto, SAN; Chief Ben Anyachebe, SAN; S.T. Hon, SAN; Arthur Obi Okafor, SAN; Ik Ezechukwu, SAN; J.S. Okutepa, SAN; Dr Mrs Valerie Azinge, SAN; Emeka Okpoko, SAN; and Alex Ejesieme, SAN.
According to an inside source, Obi’s legal team is still being constituted and “these are not all the senior advocates of Nigeria on the team. More are still signing up.”
Obi’s legal team had argued that the data on the BVAS contains the substance of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate’s case against INEC’s unlawful manipulation of the February 25 election’s results and processes.
The team informed the court that its forensic experts had not been granted access to INEC systems to inspect them before the said data transfer, and the said process is not clearly spelt out to all parties concerned.
Obi’s lawyers questioned the motives of INEC to be so hasty to compromise the principal evidence of the election umpire’s fraudulent manipulation of the election results.
In its response, the electoral body argued that it would transfer the data on the BVAS to a backup server. INEC wishes to clean up the BVAS for conducting the governorship and state legislative elections billed for Saturday, March 11, 2023.
The case is being heard by a three-person Court of Appeal panel headed by Justice Joseph Ikyegh.
The future of Nigeria’s democracy has come under scrutiny following the conduct of a flawed presidential election by INEC in which the electoral body declared the unpopular candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, the winner.
The three main opposition parties, Labour Party, LP, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, have all rejected the election results announced by INEC.
LP and PDP, in an unprecedented move on February 28, 2023, jointly called for the resignation of the INEC chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu and for the cancellation of the exercise, which they described as a “travesty” and “rape of democracy”.
Mr Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra who ran for president with the backing of the youth population, is widely believed to have won the election by a wide margin, beating a former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, and the Bola Tinubu, a former Lagos governor with links to drug trafficking.
Source: ChannelsTV
