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     Nigeria Extends Voting in Some Areas After Technical Glitches, Delays

   by VOA News

   Polling stations reopened in some parts of Nigeria Sunday, after
   technical problems with a new voter identification system caused delays
   and kept some Nigerians from casting ballots in the country's tightest
   election in 16 years.

   Vote tallying was underway in places that did succeed in processing
   ballots on Saturday, but scores, possibly hundreds, of polling stations
   were open for a second day to accommodate huge demand from voters.

   Nigerian media reported that up to 300 of the country's 150,000 polling
   stations were operating again Sunday, a number that couldn't be
   immediately confirmed.

   ''The chief of the country's Independent National Electoral Commission
   said in an interview with Channels TV that 450 of the thousands of
   hand-held electronic card readers distributed nationwide had
   malfunctioned.

   The election pits incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan against his
   main rival, Muhammadu Buhari, and the decision to extend voting for a
   day added more uncertainty to an already tense election campaign.

   About 60 million Nigerians are eligible to vote in the election, which
   had already been postponed once in February due to security concerns
   from the Boko Haram insurgency in the country's northeast.

   Despite a series of victories by the combined efforts of Nigeria's
   military, neighboring armed forces and foreign mercenaries, militants
   have continued to terrorize civilians in the north.

   On Saturday, witnesses told VOA that gunmen who were believed to be
   Boko Haram attacked three villages in the Gombe state, killing at least
   24 people. Insurgents also killed 25 people in a Borno state village,
   in the northeast, on Friday, Governor Kashim Settima said.

   U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Nigeria on the
   "largely peaceful and orderly conduct" of the elections. He also said
   he was impressed with Nigerians' "determination and resilience" in
   exercising their right and duty to vote "in the face of unjustifiable
   violence."

   Voting problems

   Jonathan and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party are facing a tough
   challenge from Buhari and his opposition backers, the All Progressives
   Congress.

   Past elections have been marred by allegations of vote rigging.
   Violence after the disputed 2011 elections, which also featured Buhari
   challenging Jonathan, killed about 800 people.

   Election officials have touted a new biometric voter card system as
   insurance against fraud. The system features a Permanent Voter Card and
   hand-held computers to check a voter's identity.

   Many polling stations opened late Saturday because of delays in getting
   voting materials and problems with the accreditation process. Polling
   places from Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, to Potiskum, in the
   country's far northeast, reported problems with the hand-held scanners.

   As of Saturday night, the problems seemed to be more sporadic than
   systematic.

   In the central city of Kaduna, people brought mats to polling stations
   to lie down and wait as voting continued into the night. Voters at one
   station in Lagos told VOA they waited in line for several hours while
   election workers looked for a machine that would work.

   Jonathan, who cast his vote in the southern town of Otuoke, needed 30
   minutes to go through the process.

   Scuffles broke out in Rivers state in the southern Niger Delta over
   missing results sheets amid already high tensions and concerns about
   vote rigging. Election officials suspended voting in one area, and the
   state governor refused to vote.

   A car bomb went off near a polling station in southeastern Enugu state,
   though no injuries were reported.

   Earlier in the week, both Jonathan and Buhari pledged to respect the
   outcome of the election as long as it was "free, fair and credible."

   Jonathan, 57, is a Christian from the Niger Delta oil region in the
   south, while Buhari, 72, is a Muslim from the north. Pre-election polls
   showed the two in a very close race.

   Preliminary results may be announced Sunday, though a final certified
   tally was not expected before Monday at the earliest.

   Delayed in February

   The vote was postponed in mid-February because of fighting and
   insecurity in the northeast where the Boko Haram insurgency has raged
   since 2009. The government's inability to stop the Islamist extremist
   group was a major issue during the campaign.

   Security across Nigeria was tightened leading up to the election amid
   concerns that insurgents could attack polling stations.

   In recent weeks, a multinational offensive drove Boko Haram from most
   of the towns it controlled in the northeast. On Friday, the Nigerian
   military said soldiers took back the town of Gwoza and destroyed the
   headquarters of Boko Haram's self-declared caliphate.

   U.S. intelligence officials expressed caution about the report, saying
   that even if the militants had retreated, it did not necessarily mean
   they were near defeat.

   Intelligence officials told VOA that Boko Haram has used strategic
   retreats in the past, only to wait, sometimes for weeks or more, for an
   opportunity to launch a devastating counterattack.
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   elays/2698776.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/nigeria-vote-extended-amid-glitches-delays/2698776.html