The Sunday Mail
Nigeria’s eagerly awaited election got off to an embarrassing start yesterday when the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan was denied registration and officials had to scramble to find a way for him to vote.
National television showed Jonathan in his trademark black fedora, standing patiently in a tented polling booth for 20 minutes in his home village of Otuoke in Bayelsa state.
At least three card readers failed to accredit either his ID or that of his wife, Patience Jonathan.
The couple were eventually granted accreditation, but it was not the only technical hitch as millions of voters went to polls across Africa’s biggest democracy.
In the most closely fought election in the country’s history, Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic party appears to be running neck-and-neck with Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress.
Many people formed queues to vote from the early hours and some even slept outside polling stations overnight.
Registration began at 8am, with voting set to start at 1.30pm, but there were reports of electoral officials arriving late and handheld technology— being used for the first time to read biometric permanent voter cards (PVCs) —malfunctioning.
Accreditation was painfully slow in Otuoke.
Jonathan joked: “Maybe it’s me? If I can endure, you see my sweat? I plead with all Nigerians to be patient, no matter the pains we take.
“It’s the first time we are using this technology, PVCs, card readers,” he said, adding that he was not worried, despite reports of difficulties in other states across the country.
Buhari, the first opposition candidate with a realistic chance of defeating a sitting Nigerian president, was granted accreditation in Daura town.
He told journalists: “I like the integrity of the system . . . If people are allowed to vote then rigging will be virtually impossible under the system.”
The election was originally due to take place on February 14 but was postponed, ostensibly for security reasons.
Since then Nigerian military and regional allies have made significant gains against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the country’s north-east.
There are also fears of post-election violence, though leading candidates signed a peace pledge.
An explosion struck a polling station at a primary school in the eastern city of Awka but claimed no casualties.
Uche Eze, a police spokesman for Anambra state, told Reuters: “No lives were lost and none injured. The police bomb squad has moved in.”
A court earlier this week ruled that the military could not be deployed during the election.
The Muslim-majority north is generally seen as a stronghold of Buhari and the APC, while Jonathan and the PDP are viewed as having larger support in the mainly Christian south. — The Guardian
