The Independent National Electoral Commission reprinted ballot papers for Saturday’s Osun governorship election after a court ordered it to add the Social Democratic Party that was missing from the original ballot.
INEC National Commissioner Mohammed Haruna said the reprinting was completed before the election and would not affect the opening of polling units.
“We had to reprint the ballot papers because the court ordered us to include a party which was not on the ballot,” Haruna said on Arise TV.
He said the original ballot papers had been printed two weeks earlier and delivered to the Central Bank of Nigeria before the court order came.
Haruna also assured voters that INEC had made arrangements to reduce problems with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, or BVAS.
He said the commission had deployed 5,130 BVAS machines for 3,763 polling units, creating backup machines in case some developed faults.
“There were hitches, but we've taken measures to make sure that they don't occur again,” he said.
Haruna said INEC had also deployed Registration Area Technical Aid teams to quickly fix technical problems or replace faulty machines.
Haruna urged Osun residents not to stay away from the election because of fear.
“There's a strength in numbers. Once people come out, it will be even more difficult for anybody who contemplates rigging to do so,” he said.
He added: “My plea is that the voters should all come out in their numbers and make it very difficult for whoever contemplates to do something funny to be able to do so.”
INEC said 1,906,390 permanent voter cards have been collected, representing about 81.5 percent of the cards printed for the election.
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