The Independent National Electoral Commission's request to modify the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System it used for the presidential election was granted on Wednesday by the Presidential Election Petition Court, which was in session at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

A three-judge panel of the court ruled unanimously that preventing the electoral umpire from reconfiguring the BVAS would have a negative impact on the upcoming governorship and State Assembly elections.

Peter Obi, the Labour Party's presidential candidate, and their objections to the request were overruled.

The court overruled LP and Obi's objections, concluding that the backup files on the server cannot be lost and that preventing INEC from conducting the upcoming governorship elections would be detrimental. The panel's judge, Justice Joseph Ikyegh, reprimanded the applicants for repeatedly asking to be permitted to scan and make copies of the electoral materials INEC is in possession of, saying that this constituted an abuse of the legal system.

It was mentioned that INEC had guaranteed that the accreditation information contained in the BVAS could not be altered or lost in an affidavit submitted to the court.

The court did order INEC to provide the applicants with a Certified True Copy of the findings of the physical inspection of the BVAS and to permit them to inspect and conduct digital forensic analyses of all electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections. The court stated that granting Obi and his party's objections would "tie the respondent, INEC,"'shands.

According to report, INEC has guaranteed that the data in BVAS used for the presidential election on February 25 is accurate. On Tuesday at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Tanimu Inuwa, the lead attorney for the electoral commission, gave the assurance in opposition to a request made by Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, regarding the use of BVAS during the presidential election. Inuwa, who opposed the application, claimed it would cause the governorship and houses of assembly elections, scheduled for Saturday, to be postponed.

Earlier, Obi, lead counsel, Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, had argued that the essence of the application was to enable the legal team to extract data embedded in the BVAS, "which represent the actual results from polling units." The attorneys for Obi also submitted a request to get a certified true copy of all the information in the BVAS.

"My lords, the purpose of this is to protect the evidence before INEC reconfigures the BVAS. This is so that the substance of the case won't be affected if they are eliminated, Ikpeazu continued. However, INEC urged the court to reject the application through a team of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, led by Inuwa.

Obi's request, according to INEC, would have an impact on its planning for the upcoming elections for the governor and houses of assembly. BVAS devices It informed the court that during the presidential election, about 176 000 BVAS devices were placed in polling places. "Each polling location has a unique BVAS machine that we must set up for the upcoming elections. We will have a very difficult time rearranging the 176,000 BVAS within the given time frame.

"We have already affirmed in our affidavit that we will transfer all of the BVAS's data to our backend server, ensuring that none of the data will be lost.

"The BVAS must be set up. Therefore, granting this application would slow down the process and possibly cause the elections to be delayed, argued INEC's attorney, Inuwa, SAN. After listening to the parties, Justice Joseph Ikyegh adjourned ruling on the matter till Wednesday.