We never refused aggrieved political parties access to election materials —INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, has refuted the claim that it refused to let political parties who had been wronged examine election documents as the Appeal Court had instructed.
Festus Okoye, the National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education for INEC, provided the clarification on Sunday during a guest appearance on Arise TV.
In order for “the matters to be handled swiftly,” Okoye asked the lawyers of the aggrieved parties to channel their request appropriately.
He further clarified that elections are not held by INEC at the federal level but rather by state and local governments.
Also, according to the INEC Commissioner, the commission will point the parties in the right direction so they may find the resources they need.
He said, “The commission will not deliberately or flagrantly disobey the order of a properly constituted court of law, and in this case, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting at the Court of Appeal.
“I think that what the parties involved in this election should do, is to send lawyers who understand the trajectory of the electoral process and request for some of these materials.
“If you are requesting to scan ballot papers used during the election, ballot papers are not in the headquarters of INEC.
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“Some of these ballot papers are still in our local government offices and so the proper place to scan them will be at our local government offices.”
Okoye said INEC is only resetting the BVAS, to recognize the new date for the forthcoming election.
He explained that the BVAS will not allow itself to reconfigure until all the data in it has been uploaded to the commission’s server.
Okoye ruled out the possibility of INEC allowing individuals to witness the reconfiguring of the BVAS, saying the device contains sensitive information of the biometrics of other individuals.
We never refused aggrieved political parties access to election materials —INEC
