Appeal Court orders INEC to give Bola Tinubu access to inspect BVAS Machine.

On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal in Abuja directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to permit Bola Tinubu,
the newly elected president of Nigeria, to examine electoral materials used in the election.

INEC held the presidential and National Assembly elections on 25 February.

On 1 March, Mahmood Yakubu, INEC’s chairman, proclaimed Mr Tinubu who is the candidate of the
All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the election. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who finished third,
and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were beaten by Mr. Tinubu, who received 8.8 votes overall.

A three-member Court of Appeal panel headed by Joseph Ikyegh ruled on Wednesday, stating,
“After reading the applicants’ motion exparte, I am convinced that there is substance in the application.
As a result, I give him permission to look over, scan, and make copies of some of the voting documents.

On Tuesday, Mr. Tinubu submitted an ex parte application asking the court to
grant him entry to the voting machines used by the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System.

This newspaper reported that Mr Tinubu intends to inspect the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS)
machines and election results amongst others, in preparation for his defence at the Presidential Election Petition Court,
should Atiku and Mr Obi file a formal petition to challenge his victory.

During the hearing of the application, the President-elect’s lawyer, Akintola Makinde, prayed the appellate court to
grant him leave “to inspect, scan and make photocopies of some of the electoral materials” to enable him prepare his
defence against Atiku and Mr Obi’s challenge at the tribunal.

“The materials will be pertinent in assisting us to prepare our defence and also make comparison with the
information contained in INEC’s back-end server,” Mr Makinde said while moving the ex parte request.
Along with his organization, the APC, Mr. Tinubu submitted the application.
In a related development, the political parties of Atiku and Mr. Obi as well as their candidates
received the same court authorization to examine confidential election-related materials.

Even so, INEC is asking the court for permission to change the permission that had previously been given to the PDP and LP presidential candidates.

For the purpose of conducting the governorship and state parliamentary elections on Saturday,
March 11, the electoral umpire claimed that it was necessary to reconfigure the BVAS machines.