The Independent National Election Commission (INEC), has stated that the Electoral Act forbids political parties from inspecting the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) equipment.
This was said during a Channels Television interview on Sunday night by Festus Okoye, the National Commissioner of INEC and Head of the Information and Voter Education Committee, in response to the Labour Party’s (LP) request to examine the BVAS.
He asserts that each political party that sent out polling agents has a copy of the results at the polling unit level, and that the Commission would not grant the parties’ request if they insist on seeing the same information that their agents have.
Okoye said, “On the issue of a political party saying they want to come and look at our cloud, IReV or into the brain of the BVAS, the commission will not allow that to happen.
“Every political party that deploys polling agents has a copy of the polling units level results and if a political party now says they want to come into the commission to look at the same thing their agents have already, we won’t allow that to happen because the laws do not allow that.
“Look, the commission is the regulator of political parties and the political parties cannot, just because of so many things taking place, come around and wants to regulate the commission. The commission will now allow that to happen.”
Moreover, he said that political parties are invited to visit the commission’s headquarters to peacefully air their issues.
“In terms of the issue of protest, the commission is a public trust. And as far as the commission is concerned, any Nigerian who has any grievance has the constitutional and legal right to come to the commission to protest.
“The commission will not prevent any individual or group of individuals, any political party or association not to protest because the commission is a public trust and a public institution and we cannot prevent anybody from coming to protest,” Okoye revealed
