The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been granted permission to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used for the February 25 presidential election by the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

A three-member panel of the appellate court led by Joseph Ikyegh granted permission to the electoral body to reconfigure the machines ahead of March 11 governorship and Houses of Assembly elections across the 36 states of the federation.

The Court, however, ordered the INEC to upload the data on the BVAS machines to the back-end server and make certified true copies of the data to the respondents.

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

The court had on March 3, granted leave to Atiku of the PDP and Obi of Labour Party to inspect election materials used by INEC to conduct the February 25 presidential election.

However, INEC in a motion on notice filed on March 4, is praying the court to vary the order which restrained it from tampering with materials used for the election, adding that it needed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for the next round of elections.

The court had earlier today granted an order permitting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku, and his Labour Party rival, Peter Obi, to inspect the BVAS machines and other sensitive electoral materials.”