BVAS: You can't regulate INEC, Okoye tells Labour Party, others

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it won't bow to pressure from political parties who want to assume the role of regulators of its activities.

This comes after the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, requested for the commission's permission to witness the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used in the just concluded presidential election.

Pulse reports that Labour Party is challenging the outcome of the exercise that produced the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as Nigeria's president-elect.

Meanwhile, in a bid to ensure that sensitive materials it hopes to use as evidence at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) are kept intact, Labour Party asked INEC to grant it access to monitor the process of reconfiguration and backing up of results on its BVAS machines, a move the commission vehemently opposed.

Speaking further on the matter on the night of Sunday, March 12, 2023, the INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said the request of Labour Party constitutes a role reversal.

He said this while featuring on a Channels Television programme, "Politics Today," where he explained that the INEC had been created to regulate activities of political parties and not the other way round.

“Political parties can’t regulate the commission’s activities,” Okoye said.

Pulse had earlier reported that the PEPT sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja had granted INEC's request to reconfigure the BVAS machines in preparation for the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections.