By Rafiu Ajakaye
ILORIN, Nigeria
Nigerian voters are queued to have themselves accredited as polling stations open across the country's 36 states for Saturday's presidential and parliamentary elections.
"We are sorting materials at the moment, as you can see, and the accreditation is starting in the next minutes," Balogun Abdurrahman, a polling official told The Anadolu in north central Kwara State, besieged by dozens of eligible voters already queuing up.
The exercise begins simultaneously across the country except with few hitches.
There would be no polls for electing members of the House of Representatives (lower house of parliament) in the northwest Jigawa state owing to what the electoral body calls "shortage of the ballot paper."
AA reporters across Nigeria report that accreditation process is just about to begin in most part of the country.
"Materials have not arrived here yet but people have queued up," Mahmoud Adamu, a voter in Maiduguri, in restive northeastern Borno State, told AA.
At Iyala area in the upscale Ikeja in Lagos, polling officials have arrived only in one of the three polling units there.
"Voters are waiting for the officials," Akinwunmi King, a journalist, told AA.
There are early signs of voter card reader not functioning in some areas.
Card readers are reported not functioning at all the three polling units of Okaka Ward 2 in north central Ilorin town of Kwara state.
It cannot be verified yet if this is an isolated incident.
Electoral body says a card reader should work for at least 14 hours nonstop, if charged.
The accreditation exercise, taking place across 119,973 polling centers nationwide, is to last between 8a.m. and 1p.m. when voting is scheduled to start at the same time nationwide.
Nigeria has a total of 68,833,476 registered voters but only 56,431,255 (82%) of this who have collected their Permanent Voter Card (PVC) would be eligible to vote.
Four years ago, the country had 73.5 million registered voters. Comparatively, the current voting population is roughly five million lower to the figure in 2011. This is traceable to the massive elimination of double registration through electronic software.
At least 14 presidential candidates are contesting for the plum job, although either incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari is tipped to win the high-stake polls.
A total of 2,537 candidates from Nigeria's 28 registered parties are contesting in the election into the American style two arms of the parliament – 360 House of Representatives seats and 109 Senate slots, three each from the country's 36 states and one for Abuja, the federal capital.
Details from the electoral body say 747 are contesting elections for the 109 seats in the Senate while 1,790 are contesting for the 360 seats in the House of Representatives.
Of the 747 senatorial candidates, 126 are women while 621 are men. Some 254 women are among those contesting for the House of Representatives.
A presidential candidate must secure at least 50 percent of the total vote cast and mandatory 25 percent of total votes cast in two-thirds of the 36 states.
A parliamentarian is only required to win majority votes in their constituency to be declared winner.
House of Representatives poll has, however, been shifted in northwestern Jigawa State owing to what the electoral body calls "shortfall in materials." It will be held on September 11, the commission said.
Whoever wins the presidential ballot would be sworn in on May 29 but parliamentarians would not be sworn in until June.
Nigeria has held four general elections since 1999 when it returned to civil rule after nearly three decades of continuous military interregnum beginning in 1983.
