Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 Presidential Election will be at the Court of Appeal in Abuja today (Wednesday) over his party’s legal quest to inspect Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines and other electoral materials deployed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The former Anambra State Governor tweeted this early on Wednesday as he says he remained committed to retrieve his mandate.
“Following INEC’s refusal to allow our party to inspect the materials (including BVAS) from the 25th February presidential elections, I am personally heading to the court today with our lawyers.
“As we pursue due process and defer to the rule of law, I urge all the Obidients in the various states to continue campaigning for our candidates, namely, Gbadebo Rhodes Vivour in Lagos, Chijoke Edeoga in Enugu, Patrick Dakum in Plateau, Alex Otti in Abia, Ken Pela in Delta, Ibrahim Mshelia in Borno, to name just a few. It is also imperative that Obidients vote for candidates with Competence, Character, Capacity, and Compassion,” Obi tweeted.
Obi also stated that he has cancelled his scheduled visit to some Nigerian states. “I am supposed to commence our whistle-stop campaign for our various Labour Party Governorship and State Assembly Candidates today. Initially, my trip was to take me to Nasarawa, Lagos, Enugu, Abia, Delta, Edo, Rivers, Plateau, Borno, etc,” he said.
Advising his supporters popularly known as ‘Obidients’, he Obi cautioned them not to turn the court premises into a rally ground, but respect the sanctity of the court and allow the legal team to carry out their duties.
It would be recalled that the Court of Appeal on Tuesday slated today (Wednesday) to rule on the application by INEC to be allowed to reconfigure BVAS machines deployed in the over 170,000 polling units for the February 25 elections.
A three-member panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh also adjourned to rule on the application filed by the Labour Party and Obi to be allowed to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS that was used for the poll.
Counsel for Obi, Onyechi Ikpeazu, said the essence of the application was to enable them to extract data embedded in the BVAS, which represented the actual results from polling units.
Ikpeazu, prayed the court to allow them to conduct a physical inspection of all the BVAS that was used for the presidential election, as this is to ensure that the evidence is preserved before the BVAS are reconfigured by INEC. He argued that if they are wiped out, it will affect the substance of the case.
