The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has extended voting during the Presidential and National Elections to Sunday, May 29, 2015 in some problem polling unit.
It directed all Resident Electoral Commissioners in the country to conduct election on Sunday in areas where there were hitches with card readers accrediting voters.
This morning, President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan were not accredited using the card reader because 4 different machines failed to recognise their PVCs. The first couple left the polling unit and later returned to be manually accredited.
It is still unclear what went wrong at the polling unit in the President’s home town of Otuoke, Bayelsa State.
The Chairman of INEC Committee on Information and Voters Education, Chris Iyimoga, has addressed the media at the Media Centre of the National Collation Centre, Abuja, saying with some hitches in some parts of the country, there was no way the Presidential and National Assembly Elections could be concluded today (Saturday).
He said: “Each REC 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.”
On his part, National Commissioner Igbani 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.”
INEC also released this information via its news twitter handle. See tweets below.
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581830367725899777
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581830543517597696
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581830585104121856
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831096523968512
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831213108858880
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831294516105216
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831343455207424
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831504550076416
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831544467255296
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831599504900096
https://twitter.com/INECAlert/status/581831658321657856
