The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the configuration of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) will be completed on Tuesday.

Over the past few days, there has been a controversy over the electoral body’s plan to reconfigure the BVAS machines ahead of the governorship and house of assembly elections.
Major opposition parties protested the planned configuration over concerns that the process may tamper with the data of the presidential election.

Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), recently sought an order seeking to restrain INEC “from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until the due inspection is conducted and certified true copies (CTC) of them issued”.

Last Wednesday, the presidential election petition tribunal refused to restrain INEC from reconfiguring the machines.
Moments after the court verdict, the electoral commission postponed the governorship and state assembly elections by one week in order to have adequate time to reconfigure the BVAS.

Speaking on Sunday in an interview on Channels Television, Festus Okoye, INEC national commissioner, said no BVAS machine will be reconfigured without the data being uploaded to the “accreditation backend”.

The INEC spokesperson said the commission has learnt lessons on the challenges of the BVAS machines during the presidential elections.

“As at the last time I checked, over 170,000 of those results have been uploaded,” Okoye said.
“As you are aware, we are reconfiguring the BVAS for purposes of the governorship and state assembly elections, and any BVAS that was used for the presidential and national assembly elections that do not push to the accreditation backend, the data relating to the conduct of the presidential and national assembly elections will not be reconfigured. “In fact, the BVAS will not allow itself to be reconfigured or reset if the entire data is not pushed to the accreditation backend.

“I’m sure that by Tuesday when we hope to complete the resettling of the BVAS for the purposes of the governorship and state assembly elections, the results in all the places where elections were conducted would have been pushed to the accreditation backend.”

 

Court of  Appeal Reverses Verdict on Adeleke’s Appeal.

The Appeal Court has reserved judgement on the Osun State 2022 governorship election appeal case.

The State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, is appealing the ruling of the governorship tribunal, which declared the former governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola as the authentic winner of the July 16 governorship election in the state.

While delivering judgement earlier, the Tribunal member panel held that Oyetola proved that there was over-voting in some of the polling units, a verdict swiftly rejected by Adeleke. The elected Governor described the court’s verdict as a “miscarriage of justice” and subsequently filed an appeal before the Akure division of the Court of Appeal.

Adeleke in the 31 grounds of appeal he filed before the court, prayed for “an order setting aside the whole decision of the tribunal”.
The governor is equally seeking “an order striking out the petition for want of competence and jurisdiction or in the alternative, an order dismissing the petition on the merit”.
“The second respondent cannot ‘go lo lo lo lo’ and ‘buga won’ as the duly elected governor of Osun state.”

According to the case file, “The tribunal, in its judgment, erred in law and displayed bias against the appellant when it made reference to the appellant’s dance at his inauguration as governor of Osun state, which was never an issue before the lower tribunal.
“By referring to the appellant’s personal eccentricity for dancing, the lower tribunal derided and mocked him in a manner suggesting that it was biased against him.

The appearance of bias manifests in reference to the Appellant’s proclivity for dancing, particularly the Buga song, has rendered the decision of the lower Tribunal a nullity.
“The tribunal in its judgment erred in law in returning the 1st respondent as the duly elected candidate without due regard to the enormity of the voters in the units where the results were cancelled for overvoting.”

Arguments By Counsels

At the court proceedings today, the Counsel to Adeleke (the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate), Onyechi Ikpeazu, held that a panel member, also a chief magistrate, did not air her opinion during the Judgement delivery.
Ikpeazu argued that the panel member only appended her signature, and the constitution mandates her to have aired her views about the suit.

On his part, Counsel to Oyetola (candidate of the All Progressives Congress – APC), Lateef Fagbemi, held that merely signing the judgment and not making any comment afterwards does not make the judgment invalid.

He noted that the case of over-voting exceeded six polling units, as claimed by the Appellant, adding that the anomaly was experienced in 744 polling units across the state.

After hearing the arguments and adopting the briefs of all concerned parties mentioned in the suit, the three-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Shuaibu fixed the date to decide on the matter.

 

I never plotted against Tinubu” – Emefiele breaks silence.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, on Monday quashed rumours that the Naira redesign policy of the apex bank was a plot to scuttle the presidential ambition of Bola Tinubu or frustrate the president-elect’s political interests.

A popular Nigerian newspaper had reported today (Monday) that Emefiele is determined to influence the outcome of the March 18 governorship election in Lagos State against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

The paper said the CBN has “released N500 million in new bank notes to shore up the campaign of the Labour Party in Lagos State”. Lagos is Nigeria’s economic nerve centre and the stronghold of the President-elect, Tinubu.

The Labour Party secured an upset against APC in the February 25 presidential poll in the state when its candidate, Peter Obi, polled 582,454 votes as against the 577,606 scored by Tinubu’s APC.

But reacting to the newspaper’s allegation in a statement signed by the Acting Director Corporate Communications of the CBN, Isa Abdulmumin, the apex bank’s helmsman denied the accusation.

Emefiele said: “The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to a story published in The Nation newspaper of Monday, March 13, 2023 edition, alleging that the Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has launched a “fresh plot against President-elect”.

“The aforementioned story went further to allege that the Governor has made a certain amount of money available to a candidate ahead of the March 18, 2023, gubernatorial poll.

“We wish to inform members of the public that this story is completely false and malicious as the CBN Governor does not know and has never met or even spoken with Mr. Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, either in person or through a proxy.

“We wish to reiterate that the CBN Governor does not take part in politics and therefore urge anyone with contrary information to prove the Governor wrong by providing any facts.”