INEC Discovers Over 1 Million Fake Presidential Ballot Papers

Over one million ballots had been printed at Tulip Press, an Abuja printer supposedly in a bit to rig saturday's presidential elections by 12 persons who were arrested in Abuja. Two individuals were first caught with 100,000 ballot papers loaded into a van. In the ensuing police investigation, the other one million ballots were discovered.

Opposition members had raised an alarm that the printing press belongs to the brother of the deputy chairman of the People’s Democratic Party.
 INEC spokesperson informs that the million ballot papers recovered were dummies which is permitted under the Nigerian constitution. The ballot papers were allegedly designed by the commission in line with “Section 60″ of the Electoral Law to “fool” troublemakers at polling booths if they show up to vote without legitimacy.

Section 60 (1) reads: If a person claiming to be entitled to vote applies for a ballot paper after some other person has voted in the name given by the claimant he shall, upon satisfactory answers given to any questions put to him by a poll clerk be entitled to receive a ballot paper in the same manner as any other voter; but the ballot paper (in this Act referred to as “the tendered ballot paper”) shall be
of a colour different from the ordinary ballot papers.

The ‘dummies’  implied in Section 60 however should be of a different colour from the ordinary ballot papers – the ballot papers found with the Abuja printers were however of the same colour..
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