The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday of attempting to obliterate and destroy evidence of alleged election rigging from last Saturday.
PDP claimed that INEC was attempting to eliminate evidence in order to prevent it from gaining proof that the BVAS machines had been altered.
The former ruling party’s spokesman, Debo Ologunagba, claimed that INEC’s decision was intended to thwart Citizens’ attempts to seek redress in court.
Addressing a press conference, Ologunaba said: “We have called you to alert Nigerians and the International Community of the atrocious move by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to destroy and erase evidence of its intolerable rigging of the February 25, 2023 Presidential election.
“Late yesterday at 10: 10 pm, INEC in a desperate move to prevent our Party and Candidate from obtaining necessary evidence as Ordered by the Court, filed a motion requesting that it be allowed to reconfigure the BVAS machines and wipe out relevant information that our Party and Candidate require to prosecute our case at the Presidential Election Tribunal.
“This reprehensible action by INEC to frustrate the desire of Nigerians to get redress through the court is a clear recipe for crisis and a deliberate design by the Commission to derail our democracy and trigger anarchy in the country.
“Nigerians can recall how the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu superintended over the manipulation of the results of the Presidential election and hurriedly announced a winner in spite of widespread outcry and complain over numerous evidence of malpractices and violation of several provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 by INEC and its officials.
“The INEC Chairman bypassed all the steps and procedures provided by the Electoral Act, 2022 for the declaration of results, including announcing and declaring only results that were transmitted directly from the Polling Units to the INEC Server/Website and to review the results in the event of disputes and objections as to the correctness and consistency of the collated result.”
The Court of Appeal had on 3 March granted leave to Atiku and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, to inspect documents used by INEC for the conduct of the election.
They had alleged that substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 in addition to violence and rigging marred the conduct and outcome of the election.
They, therefore, approached the court for a leave of the court to inspect the sensitive materials used for conducting the election.
But on Monday, INEC filed a motion requesting that it be allowed to reconfigure the BVAS machines for the governorship elections to be held on Saturday. INEC admitted that; the “BVAS Application stores the Accreditation Data for all voters accredited on the device for the Presidential, Senatorial Districts and House of Representatives elections conducted on the 25th February, 2023” and that the reconfiguration of the BVAS devices “entails purging the Accreditation Data on the BVAS devices”.
