2nd LD Writethru-Africa Focus: Nigeria extends voting into an extra day due to card reader glitches

Voting during the presidential and national congress elections in Nigeria have been extended to Sunday, due to card reader glitches which almost marred the exercise in many parts of the West African country, the electoral body said Saturday.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria's electoral body, said it has directed all resident electoral commissioners in the country to conduct elections on Sunday in areas where voter accreditation or voting problems were recorded.

INEC noted the election could not be concluded Saturday due to the glitches.

"Each resident electoral commissioner 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," Chris Iyimoga, chairman of INEC committee on information and voters education, told reporters at the National Collation Center in Abuja.

The electoral body said it was stunned by the malfunctioning of some of the card readers used in verifying the identity of voters ahead of the election.

Nigeria's leader Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience Jonathan, were delayed during accreditation in Otuoke, his homestead in the southeastern state of Bayelsa as the card reader could not verify their identities.

Ishmael Igbani, a national commissioner of the Nigerian electoral organization, said: "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, we had to use manual system."

Earlier, Xinhua reported that thousands of electorates in the Nigerian capital Abuja had flayed the accreditation process which preceded voting in the presidential election on Saturday.

Millions of voters across Nigeria, who had arrived at polling units ahead of the scheduled time for accreditation, said apart from late arrival of officials of the electoral body to commence the accreditation process, the card readers failed to work as expected during the crucial exercise.

Governor of the southeastern state of Edo Adams Oshiomole lamented the failure of card readers in his province and told reporters he had lodged his complaints to the appropriate authorities for prompt action.

"I have spoken to the INEC resident electoral commissioner in Benin (the Edo State capital) and I believe that Attahiru Jega, the electoral chief, should be aware of what is going on in Edo where card readers are not working in many places. We have gotten reports from Benin and across the state and it appears the problem is rather widespread but it is my hope that INEC has sensible alternatives to invoke when we are in this kind of critical condition," the Nigerian governor said.

A total of 14 candidates are competing in Nigeria's presidential election, adjudged the toughest since the West African country reverted to democracy 16 years ago. Endi