The court, in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of justices, held that preventing the electoral umpire from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the forthcoming governorship and State Assembly elections.

It dismissed objections by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, against the request.

According to the court, allowing the objections by Obi and his party, would amount to “tying the hands of the Respondent, INEC”.

Dismissing objections by LP and Obi, the court held that the backup files on the server cannot be lost and that restraining INEC will affect the forthcoming governorship elections.

Justice Joseph Ikyegh who presided over the panel chided the applicants for repeating their request to be allowed to scan and make copies of the electoral materials in INEC’s possession stating that it amounted to an abuse of court process.

It noted that INEC had in an affidavit filed before the court, assured that the accreditation data contained in the BVAS could not be tampered with or lost.

It further stated that neither Obi nor LP filed a counter affidavit to challenge the argument in INEC’s affidavit.

The court, however, ordered INEC to allow the Applicants to inspect and carry out digital forensic examination of all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections, as well as to avail them the Certified True Copy, of result of the physical inspection of the BVAS.

INEC is contesting a request made by Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, LP, about the BVAS used in the election.

Inuwa, who opposed the application, claimed it would cause the governorship and state house of assembly elections, planned for Saturday, to be postponed.

He  told the court that there were about 176, 000 BVAS machines that were deployed in polling units during the presidential election.

“Each polling unit has its own particular BVAS machine which we need to configure for the forthcoming elections. It will be very difficult for us, within the period, to reconfigure the 176,000 BVAS.

“We have already stated in our affidavit that no information in the BVAS will be lost as we will transfer all the data in the BVAS to our backend server.

“We need the BVAS  configured. So, granting this application will be a clog in the process and may delay the conduct of the elections”, INEC’s lawyer, Inuwa, SAN, pleaded.

After listening to the parties, Justice Joseph Ikyegh adjourned ruling on the matter till Wednesday.

The court issued the restraining order in the ruling it gave on Friday granting permission to the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and Obi to inspect the sensitive materials used for the conduct of the February 25 election.

Both Atiku and Obi obtained the order to challenge the outcome of the election which they alleged was marred by fraud and other irregularities.

INEC on March 1 declared the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bola Tinubu as the winner of the election but the PDP and the LP candidates are contesting the outcome.

They subsequently filed separate ex parte applications, praying to be granted access to inspect sensitive materials that INEC used for the conduct of the presidential poll.

But INEC, in a motion on the notice filed on March 4, asked the court to vary the order restraining it from tampering with materials used for the election.

The commission said it needed to reconfigure the BVAS for the next round of elections which would be held on Saturday.

The commission, which took delivery of the last batch of the machines at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on Tuesday, said this was in line with its contingency provisions for all critical election materials.

The National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye told The PUNCH on Wednesday that INEC would deploy over 194,464 BVAS machines in 176, 846 polling units across the country.

He explained that 176,846 polling units would receive a BVAS each, adding that each registration area amounting to 8,809, would also get at least two BVAS as backup in case of malfunction, bringing the total to over 194,464 BVAS machines.

Okoye said “We have 176, 846 polling units in Nigeria. All of them will have a BVAS. Some polling units may still have more than 750 registered voters. We shall deploy additional BVAS to such polling units.

“We have 8,809 registration areas in Nigeria. Each one will have at least two BVAS for purposes of quick intervention in cases of sustained malfunction of  BVAS in any of the polling units in each electoral ward.’’

Earlier in a statement, Okoye disclosed that the electoral agency received the last batch of the BVAS machines on Tuesday.

He said the commission created four airport hubs in Abuja, Kano, Lagos, and Port Harcourt to facilitate the smooth delivery of the machines.

The statement read, “In furtherance of the preparations for the 2023 general election, the commission, yesterday, 3rd January 2023, received the last consignment of the bimodal voter accreditation machines with 52 days to the election.

“The commission’s Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, national commissioners and senior officials of the commission were at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, to receive the BVAS. Officials of the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company and airport security officials were at the airport to receive the INEC team.

“To facilitate the smooth delivery of the machines, the commission created four airport hubs in Abuja, Kano, Lagos, and Port Harcourt. Over the last four months, several flights delivered the BVAS to the designated airports for movement to states of the federation ahead of the elections.

‘’With the arrival of the last flight in Abuja yesterday, the commission has now taken delivery of the required number of the BVAS for all the polling units in the country and extra machines in line with our contingency provisions for all critical election materials.

“The commission appreciates the support of all Nigerians in its determination to conduct a free, fair, credible, transparent, and inclusive 2023 general election facilitated by the deployment of technology.”

Prior to the deployment of the BVAS device, Yahaya claimed that some politicians had exploited the card readers used in past elections for electoral fraud. Yahaya made this claim on Tuesday in the Tukulma ward of the Akko Local Government Area (LGA) of Gombe State.

The governor said the BVAS had been introduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to avert such electoral frauds.

He said he remained confident that if the 2023 elections were to be held anytime, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates at all levels would win elections in the state.

“Before now, some people will sit in a room and write results, declaring whoever the winner of election, but with BVAS, we are not scared because we have supporters,” he said.

Yahaya appealed to potential voters in the ward to ensure that they collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), adding that the PVCs remained the only tools for electorates to choice and determine their leaders during election.

He called on women and youths to vote for Bola Tinubu and all APC candidates in the state, adding that a vote for his party would help sustain the good performances so far recorded by his administration in the state.

Earlier, the State Director-General, APC Campaign Council, Mr Zubair Umar, appealed to supporters to collect their PVCs ahead of the 2023 general election to exercise their franchise.

Umar also called on youths to engage in peaceful politics and eschew violence.

He said that Yahaya needed no campaign for re-election because his administration had performed beyond expectations in all sectors.

According to him, there are over 200,000 PVCs yet to be collected in Gombe State, so I urge supporters and all those who registered to ensure that they collect their PVCs before elections to enable them vote the party of their choice.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gov. Yahaya and his campaign team had so far visited all the wards in Balanga, Kaltungo, Kwami, Shongom and Billiri LGAs of the state and are currently campaigning in Akko LGA.

Speaking on Channels Television’s ‘Sunday Politics’, the INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, noted that the Commission had trained technicians who would be on standby at polling units.

There had been speculations about the possibility of server failures in the course of the transmission of election results through BVAS, especially by some politicians.

Okoye on Sunday noted that the electoral body had already made provision for the use of the BVAS in the over 176,000 polling units in the country. He, however, noted that INEC also made provision for spare BVAS machines in the case of any failure.

“For each electoral ward, we are going to have some spare BVAS to be deployed speedily if there is any issue or any challenge in any of our polling units. We have also trained technical support staff that can also intervene if there is any challenge with the BVAS.

“But if there is sustained malfunction of the BVAS up to the time of the closing of the poll, the Electoral Act demands that we should undermine voting in that particular polling unit and repeat voting within 24 hours,” Okoye stated.

He earlier described as “an impossibility”, the plan by any politician who was already allegedly harvesting PVCs to rig the elections.

According to INEC, BVAS technology that will be used for the accreditation and authentication of voters in 2023, will reject biometric data of persons who are not original owners of traded permanent voters cards.

“In terms of any politician bypassing the BVAS, I want to tell you that that will not happen, that is an impossibility,” Okoye said.

“Anybody who is purchasing a permanent voter card is just engaging in an exercise in futility. The only thing any person can do is to make sure the voter does not vote on election day but for you to come to the polling unit on election day with a voter’s card belonging to someone else, and you attempt to vote with it, that is an impossibility, the BVAS will not capture your fingerprint,” Okoye said.

INEC also noted that polling units near politicians’ homes had been removed.

He said, “We removed polling units from the palaces of traditional rulers, we removed polling units that are near the homes of politicians, we removed polling units that are in shrines, we also removed polling units from places we consider not conducive for electoral business.”

Okoye also admonished voters to support the commission’s efforts through shared responsibility and mandate protection to ensure free and fair 2023 elections.