The Governorship and State Houses of Assembly election scheduled to hold March 11 may not hold except the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, vacated the order of the election petition tribunal restricting the commission from tempering with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines.
This was disclosed by an election observer group, Coalition of Civil Societies for Good Governance through its Coordinator, Olufemi Lawson while addressing journalists in Osogbo on Monday.
The Presidential candidates of both the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the Labour Party, had approached the election petition tribunal to seek an order restraining INEC from tempering with the BVAS machines pending the inspection of the machines and other documents used for the presidential election.
However, Lawson, who was flanked by Comrade Ayo Ologun, a leader of one of the groups, said unless the electoral umpire approached the tribunal to vacate the order, it will be difficult for the commission to reconfigure the BVAS machines for the polls scheduled for Saturday.
According to him, with the present situation, INEC is faced with two options; to seek to postpone the election or decided not to use BVAS, which eventually will lead us back to the days of the electoral heist.
“The present situation is such that needs serious attention from both the commission and other stakeholders, particularly, politicians. If INEC did not vacate the order of the tribunal granted PDP and Labour Party, it would not be able to reconfigure BVAS machines for Saturday Governorship and Houses of Assembly election. It is either INEC postpone the poll, proceed without BVAS or seek legal option to vacate the order”.
Ologun, while fielding questions from journalists, opined that the INEC must work to ensure that infractions witnessed during the presidential election did not repeat themselves again this time.
“INEC as a body must put its house in order to ensure that actions capable of undermining the electoral process are adequately and effectively checked. Nigerians must not be taken for granted again”, he added.
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