INEC Rejects Labour Party Reconfiguration Request

The Labour Party has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of deliberately reconfiguring the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines to cover up irregularities in the recent presidential election.

This accusation comes after the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, requested to examine the election materials.

The party has also raised concerns about the backup of data retrieved from the BVAS, which INEC claims to have done without the presence of independent witnesses and representatives of political parties.

The LP spokesperson, Yunusa Tanko, said that INEC has been constantly changing its rules of engagement to cover up earlier anomalies they observed. He also warned the electoral body to raise its standards and do the right thing to avoid incurring the wrath of the masses.

Tanko further stated that they had lost confidence in the capacity of the commission to hold a free and fair election.

The LP is consulting with its lawyers to determine whether or not to appeal the court ruling on BVAS reconfiguration. Similarly, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expressed strong reservations about INEC’s capacity to conduct the upcoming governorship and Houses of Assembly polls in a free, fair, and transparent manner.

The National Publicity of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, said the commission’s conduct in the past two weeks had made most Nigerians doubt its sincerity. He questioned the integrity and believability of INEC, given its behaviour and activities during and after the election. Ologunagba also raised concerns about the possibility of losing data when saved in the cloud and asked how INEC would ensure that the data would be preserved.

However, INEC has defended its actions, saying that the data back-up of the BVAS is an internal affair of the commission and not open to inspection by parties.

The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, said that the reconfiguration or data back-processes of the BVAS machines is strictly an internal affair of the commission, and no external eyes are allowed to witness it.

He also questioned the LP’s desire to witness such an activity and likened it to students demanding to be present when their teachers are determining examination questions.