Nigerians hit by failures in new election technology have returned to the polls to cast their ballots in the country’s close-run presidential election.

President Goodluck Jonathan – who is running against former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari – and at least three governors from his ruling party were among those whose biometric details could not be checked by the devices, which are designed to combat electoral fraud.

Instead, they had to be processed by hand.

• At least 50 killed in Nigeria bomb blast
• Australia joins China bank
• PM to attend Lee Kuan Yew funeral 

Mr Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called it a “huge national embarrassment” and a “vindication” of their position against the technology.

“There should have been a test-run for a smaller election before deploying it for an election of this magnitude,” said Mr Jonathan’s presidential campaign spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode.

Mr Buhari, Mr Jonathan’s main opponent whose All Progressives Congress (APC) party had backed the voter identity card readers, however, suggested the row was overblown.

“All this, I think, negative thought about Nigeria’s election shouldn’t hold because of (a) problem in even a maximum of five states,” he said.

A 24-hour extension to the election was “in order”, he added after voting in his home state of Katsina, in the Muslim-majority north.

The confusion over the malfunctioning technology added to problems in voting in Africa’s most populous country which included election officials arriving late – or sometimes not at all.

Boko Haram, which has dominated the campaign trail, also loomed large, apparently holding good to their pledge to disrupt what it sees as the “un-Islamic” elections by launching a series of attacks.

On Friday, 23 people were beheaded and homes set on fire in Buratai, about 200 kilometres from the Borno state capital, although it was not clear if it was poll-related.

On Saturday, at least seven people were killed in a string of shootings that witnesses blamed on the Islamists in the northeastern state of Gombe.

Three of the attacks were at polling stations.

An election official in the Nafada district, who asked not to be identified, said the gunmen were heard shouting:

“Didn’t we warn you about staying away from the election?”

The Islamists have repeatedly targeted Nafada but the APC on Saturday blamed its political opponents.

The Independent National Electoral Commission had said the overall result would be announced within 48 hours of polls closing.

But the enforced delay, which will result in those affected by the technical glitches being accredited by hand, will likely stretch an already loose deadline.

INEC chairman Attahiru Jega told NTA state television in an interview on Saturday night that what happened to Jonathan was “regrettable and a national embarrassment”.

But he added that “in general, we believe that in spite of the challenges things have gone very well” and that turn-out was “quite large”.

The body’s spokesman Kayode Idowu said voting would take place on Sunday in “just about 300 polling units out of about 150,000” across the country.