Off the wire
• Urgent: Yemeni president flies to Saudi with Saudi king: Yemeni FM  • China welcomes Netherlands, Brazil, Georgia to AIIB  • Chinese FM heads for meeting over Iran nuke issue in Switzerland  • China expects new era in figure skating  • Fitch ratings agency maintains Portugal outlook at BB+  • CPC discipline chief says discipline stricter than law  • (Recast) Some 570 Cambodians fall ill after eating contaminated snacks  • 1st LD: 132nd Assembly of Inter-Parliamentary Union kicks off in Vietnam  • FLASH: BOKO HARAM MILITANTS KILL VOTERS ON WAY TO POLLING STATION IN NORTHEAST NIGERIA'S YOBE STATE - REPORT  • 3rd LD Roundup: Explosion hits southern Nigerian state on election day  
You are here: 　 Home

Nigeria's election accreditation kicks off amidst large turn-out

Xinhua, March 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

Voters in Nigeria on Saturday turned out en masse to vote in the fifth presidential and national assembly elections since 1999.

In Lagos, Nigeria's most economically important state, thousands of electorate who turned out to vote candidates of their choice were disappointed as accreditation was delayed.

Some voters are angry with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over shoddy preparation as poor logistics mar the ongoing exercise in some parts of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

In most places, accreditation started late, in some others, the card reader machines are not working while in others, INEC officials are yet to show up as at 10:00 a.m., local time.

The situation is across Lagos, with lots of hitches, but in some places, accreditation was going on without hitches.

Electoral materials left INEC office around 9 a.m., local time due to logistic problems.

"As you can see the turn here has been fine so far, since we started 8:00 a.m., people have been coming out, even it has been so ethic for me dealing with the stress of the crowd, but we've gone through some stages and the accreditation process, by 1:30 p. m. people will start coming out for voting as they've come out already for accreditation," Kuforiji Akinfolabi, the presiding officer for Surulere 002 unit said.

A party agent in Victoria Island, Blessing Martins, told Xinhua that everything has been peaceful at her polling unit.

"So far so good, everything has been going on peacefully, though the officer arrived late and right now they are having challenges with the card reader, it cannot read the voters card properly. So, they have to used an alternative means by going to their registration book to verify peoples name, card and their numbers," she added.

The streets of Lagos have been deserted as residents complied with the directive of non vehicular movements during the election period.

However, voters in remote areas, especially in the restive northern part of the country, went to the polling units amidst security concerns with reports of explosions and attacks of suspected Boko Haram militants. Endi