Photos: 2015 Presidential Election Ballot Papers Found In London

Culled From SaharaReporters…

Ballots meant for the Nigerian presidential election were found yesterday at the premises of a local printer in the Essex area of London.

Our sources said the sensitive election materials, which ought to have arrived in Nigeria earlier in the week, were unsecured at the premises of Panther Printing Services in London. SaharaReporters was able to confirm that a Nigerian firm named Cemoz International Limited had been contracted to print some ballot papers for the 2015 presidential elections.

A spokesman for the Independent National Electoral Commission, Kayode Idowu, confirmed to SaharaReporters that Cemoz International Limited was one of the firms awarded the contract to print ballot papers.

It appears that, upon getting the contract, Cemoz went shopping for printers in London to print the ballot papers and then contracted these other printers to serially number the ballot papers. Although the ballot papers for the presidential elections for several southwest states were seen lying around the premises of the printing company in Essex, a staff at the company, speaking to a correspondent of SaharaReporters, said the firm only had the contract to print some of the ballot papers for Jigawa State.

Thinking that our correspondent worked for Cemoz, the representative of the Essex-based company asked if we could give them more jobs, adding that their company had mastered how to print ballot papers.

SaharaReporters later obtained a bill of lading showing that Cemoz planned to ship the ballot papers to Nigeria a few hours before February 14th, the day initially set aside for the presidential election.

INEC subsequently postponed the election for six weeks.