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Nigeria's ruling party condemns card reader hiccups

Xinhua, March 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Nigeria's ruling party has described the hiccup of Card Reader in accrediting President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday as a huge national embarrassment.

National spokesperson for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Olisa Metuh said in a statement reaching Xinhua on Sunday that several states also experienced similar hiccup.

He called for thorough explanation from the electoral commission, saying that the poor working of the card readers in the March 28 Presidential and National Assembly elections across the country could have been avoided.

According to him, this would have been so if the commission had listened to sound advice from well-meaning individuals, organizations and the PDP regarding the deployment of the machines without proper testing.

The PDP spokesperson added that the last minute resort to manual accreditation by the commission, hours into the exercise against its earlier guidelines, clearly showed the failure of the system.

He expressed concern about the development, given the avowed commitment of the President Jonathan-led PDP administration to hitch-free, fair and credible electoral process.

Metuh charged the electoral commission to take urgent steps within the law, to ensure that no willing and qualified voter was disenfranchised. Endi