The Independent National Electoral Commission has given reasons why the opening of polling units was delayed by election officials.

According to the commission, insecurity in some states led to delays as well as logistics issues led to the delay.

This was disclosed in a briefing by the INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, on Saturday.

He also said that thugs attacked three polling units and carted away five Bimodal Voter Authentication Systems.

He explained “One of the challenges identified is the inability of the commission in a number of places to open the polling units at the appointed time of 8:30 am. Some of the polling units opened late. But in line with our policy, any Nigerian who is in the queue will have the opportunity to vote no matter how long it takes until the last person in the queue before 2:30 pm votes.

“Some of the reasons why we could not open some of the polling units on time include; perennial problems of logistics in spite of our best efforts. I think we have conquered the challenge of getting election materials to various locations. Though there may be complaints here and there, generally speaking, we have delivered millions of ballot papers and result sheets that we are supposed to deliver for the election.

“But another contributing factor to the late opening of polling units is actually the perennial insecurity in the country. For instance, we could not deploy early enough to Alawa in Shiroro Local Government Area in Niger State. Bandits launched an attack, not necessarily on INEC offices or facilities but in the area. With the advice of the security agencies, we tarried a while but I am happy to say that we are able to deploy to Alawa, and voting in that location is ongoing as we speak.

Yakubu noted that the attacks by the thugs were targeted at the BVAS.

He said, “So in these locations, the target of attacks was actually the BVAS machines no longer our ballot papers or the ballot box.”