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2nd LD Writethru: Nigeria's electoral body to commence final collation of ballots 48 hours after election

Xinhua, March 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will commence the final collation of votes cast across the West African country 48 hours after the presidential and national assembly elections were held, the electoral chief, Attahiru Jega, said on Sunday.

"You start counting 48 hours when substantial amount of polling units have concluded elections," the official said while addressing a world press conference at the national collation center in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

The electoral umpire said, as of the time of the press conference, no resident electoral commissioner deployed in the states across Nigeria had yet arrived at the national collation center to commence the final collation.

"We will declare results when they have been collated from the states," he added, noting tensions were generally high as election results were being delayed.

Commenting on how the election fared, the electoral body said it was pleased the exercise went on smoothly across the country including the northeastern region, particularly in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, the three most-hit provinces by Boko Haram attacks.

"We believe we have done sufficient voter education to make invalidation of votes lower," the electoral chief said.

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 electoral body due to card reader glitches which almost marred the exercise in many parts of the country on Saturday. Water-tight security were reported in all the polling centers which opened to normalize the situation on Sunday.

Adjudged Nigeria's toughest presidential election in 16 years, the ongoing national polls is the fifth quadrennial election to be held since the end of military rule in 1999.

Nearly 60 million people who have the permanent voter cards might have participated in the election. Endi