ABUJA, Federal Republic of Nigeria. (Report by Romanus Ugwu And Fred Itua) — Nigerians preservered, voted on election day despite glitch on Smart Card Reader.
- Large turnout, big frustration.
- INEC reverts to manual accreditation, extends voting until Sunday, March 29, 2015.
Apparently overwhelmed by the complaints and criticisms that trailed yesterday’s use of card readers for the presidential election, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega has admitted the shortcomings.
The INEC boss has equally extended voting to today (Sunday) to enable Nigerians who could not be accredited yesterday exercise their franchise. This extension is expected to be carried out in all the 36 states of the federation and the FCT where there are pockets of complaints.
INEC boss Professor Attahiru Jega
Addressing a press conference at the National Collation Centre, Prof. Jega who spoke through the commission’s National Information Commissioner, Mr. Chris Iyimoga vowed to investigate the root causes of the series of complaints that trailed the maiden poll across the federation.
“Whereas the process has been going well in some places, it has had challenges in others especially with the use of the card readers. Consequently, accreditation has been very slow in some places and has not commenced in others even though the guidelines for the conduct of the 2015 elections provide that where card readers fail and cannot be replaced, elections in such polling units will be postponed.
“The scale of the challenge that we have observed has necessitated the reconsideration of the elections guidelines.
“The commission has therefore decided that as part of guidelines for the general elections, the polling units where the card readers have failed to work, the presiding officer shall manually accredit voters by marking the register of voters having been satisfied that the person presenting the permanent voters card is the legitimate owner of the card.
“Those polling units where accreditation were suspended to the following day in accordance with the electoral guideline, arrangements will be made for voters to vote tomorrow (today), subject to the Electoral Act 2015 as amended.
“The commission re-assures the voting public that it would thoroughly investigate what happened and remains committed to the delivery of fair and credible elections in spite of these challenges,” Jega explained.
