Voting in Nigeria's presidential election continues amid tight security

Voting in Nigeria's presidential and national congress elections continued amid tight security on Sunday, as polling centers opened early to verify identities of electorates.

The exercise was extended by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), due to card reader glitches which almost marred the exercise in many parts of the West African country on Saturday.

Water-tight security were reported in all the polling centers which opened to normalize the situation. The Nigerian electoral organization had directed all resident electoral commissioners in the country to conduct elections in 300 of the 150,000 polling centers where voter accreditation or voting problems were recorded.

In central Nigeria's Plateau State, polling units were opened in nine out of 17 local districts in the province, the Nigerian electoral body said, adding voting will be rounded off at noon.

In the southwestern Lagos State, election will also be conducted in some five local districts, according to the electoral commission, which also noted similar cases abound in other states across the country.

INEC said it identified 109 areas where card readers malfunctioned in Saturday's election exercise, 100 areas recorded biometric problems and there were almost 100 cases of low batteries on the machine used in verifying names of voters.

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