The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced a partial extension of voting in the ongoing Presidential and National Assembly elections to Sunday.
All Resident Electoral Commissioners in the country have therefore been directed to conduct election on Sunday in areas where there were hitches.
Addressing journalists at the Media Centre of the National Collation Centre in Abuja on Saturday, Chairman of INEC Committee on Information and Voters Education, Mr. Chris Iyimoga, said with some hitches in some parts of the country, there was no way the Presidential and National Assembly Elections could be concluded on Saturday.
“Each REC has been informed to conduct election on Sunday where there are hitches with accreditation or voting. I cannot say exactly the number of states affected but the problems are not in all the states,” Iyimoga said.
Ishmael Igbani, Muhammadu Wali, Engr. Nuru Yakubu, and Gladys Nwafor; other National Commissioners of INEC were also at the briefing.
“No one can really say what went wrong in Otuoke but the machine or the card readers could not capture the fingerprints of the President and the First Lady. Where such a situation arises, we have to use manual system,” Igbani said.
On the hacking of INEC website, Commissioner Yakubu said: “We have lifted the contents on our website and relocated to another site.”
Full text of INEC`s press statement signed by Chris Iyimoga is reproduced below:
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been monitoring field reports on the accreditation process since the commencement of the poll this morning. Whereas the process has gone on well in several places, in some others it has encountered some challenges, especially with the use of the card readers. Consequently, accreditation has been slow in many places and has not commenced at all in some others.
Even though the Guidelines for the Conduct of the 2015 general elections provide that where card readers fail to work and cannot be replaced, elections in such Polling Units will be postponed to the following day, the scale of the challenge we have observed today has necessitated a reconsideration of this provision of the Guidelines. The Commission has, therefore, decided as part of the Guidelines for the Conduct of the 2015 general elections that in Polling Units where card readers have so failed to work, the Presiding Officer shall manually accredit voters by marking the register of voters, upon being satisfied that the person presenting a Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) is the legitimate holder of the card.
The above not withstanding, in Polling Units where accreditation was suspended to the following day in accordance with the existing Guidelines, arrangements will be made for voters to vote tomorrow, subject to the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
The Commission reassures the voting public that it will thoroughly investigate what happened, while it remains committed to the delivery of free, fair and credible elections in spite of the challenges.
