An unconfirmed report by Associated Press says Nigeria has postpone its general elections by six weeks.

According to the report, the decision by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is to enable Africa’s multinational force time, to recover areas under the Boko Haram control in the country’s North East region.

An un-named INEC official told AP millions of Nigerians would be disenfranchised if the elections goes ahead as initially planned.

INEC is expected to make a statement to that effect in a press conference.

Contrary to the speculation going round that Nigeria’s general elections will be shifted to a later date, Nigeria’s highest decision making body – National Council of State has okayed the elections to kick off on February 14 as scheduled.

The issue which form part of the discussion during the Council of State on Thursday was finally resolved with directive to the Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to proceed with preparations as schedule without delay.

There were speculations prior to the Council meeting that President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration may influence the National body to get INEC shift the voting dates.

Presidential and National Assembly elections were scheduled to hold on February 14, while Gubernatorial and States Assembly elections were fixed for February 28.

Meanwhile some sources at the meeting revealed that all former heads of state at the meeting agreed that INEC’s plans to conduct the elections as schedule earlier should be respected.

But some governors Present at the meeting were divided along party lines.

According to sources, majority of PDP governors wanted the polls delayed for fear of insecurity in parts of the country and to enable the 34 percent of voters collect their permanent voter cards – their counterparts in the opposition however insisted that the poll must proceed as scheduled.

Speaking shortly after the meeting Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State said that INEC assured the Council it was ready to conduct the elections and that the distribution of the permanent voter cards was going on well.

Okorocha said, “It was one of an unusual Council of State meeting that took over seven hours deliberating on a very sensitive issue as to whether INEC is prepared for the elections or not and whether there is need for the change of dates of these elections.

“INEC has said they are very ready to conduct these elections and the security agencies have shown concerns about certain local governments where they have security challenges. But INEC has the power to conduct elections including fixing dates of elections.

“The Council rose that INEC should then inform the nation as to their preparedness and proceed to conduct the elections.”

According to him the state council after the assurance by Jega asked the commission to go and performs its civic responsibility and advised INEC to liaise with security agencies to provide adequate security during the polls.

Mimiko ‎on his part said “INEC had the benefit of input from council members and security chiefs and agencies.

“And based on the very exhaustive discussion and pieces of advice, INEC is constitutionally empowered with the basis of discussions to brief the nation and then the news will be communicated to you”.

Asked if the meeting discussed ‎date shifts, the Ondo State Governor said, “‎Like I made it absolutely clear, I am not INEC Chief, INEC will appropriately brief you based on the meeting we just had. INEC is going to consult widely with stakeholders and come up with a decision that they will brief the nation soon.”

The meeting lasted over seven hours.

Nigeria’s National Council of state has directed the country’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to go ahead with the 2015 general elections as planned.

More details later…

South Africa is experiencing a major power blackout, the worst since 2008. This is because of shortage of generation capacity – units have been out of service for unplanned maintenance caused by technical faults.

Eskom, the electric power supply company on Thursday announced moving from stage 2 to stage 3 load shedding commencing at 4pm local time and expected to last till 11pm. 

Load shedding by Eskom, moved from stage 1 on Wednesday between 10am and 10pm where some consumers experience outage for about 4 hours. But at 1pm, Eskom announced on Twitter that it will shift load shedding from stage 1 to 2 from 2pm until 10pm on Wednesday.

Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe acknowledged that Thursday’s load shedding was the worst since the Majuba silo collapsed at the start of November 2014, which was the last time South Africa had stage 3 load shedding.

Stage one allows for up to 1000MW of the national load to be cut, stage two for up to 2000MW, and stage three for up to 4000MW

This is currently affecting businesses in Africa’s second largest economy.

Nigerian Police is setting up a Special Team to investigate all electoral offences in the forthcoming general elections in the country.

Inspector-General, Suleiman Abba ordered the constitution of the team under the Commissioner of Police, Force Legal Prosecution Department, Nwodibo Ekechukwu.

 
Nigeria goes to polls on February 14 for presidential and National Assembly elections and on February 28 for the governorship and House of Representatives elections.

Many Nigerians are already expressing fear that the election may lead to violence. Already, supporters of the two major political parties – the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and opposition All Progressives Congress have been accused of physically attacking each other.

Over 800 Nigerians were killed in 2011 after announcing the result of the presidential elections which saw General Buhari losing.

The international community has urged all politicians and political stakeholders to call their supporters to order.

Nigeria Television Authority, NTA, Jos, north central Nigeria is on fire.
Eye witness say the cause of the fire is unknown, but has affected the admin block of the station
At the time of filing this report, efforts are on to put off the fire.

Nigeria may extend distribution of voter card beyong the February 8 if the electoral commission fails to distribute significant number of the cards by the closing day.

Amina Zachary, a commissioner for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Amina Zachary gave the indication in an interview Reuters.

“Let’s see how the PVC (permanent voter card) distribution goes by Feb. 8, then maybe,” she said.

She however said no decision had been taken yet.

10 days to the presidential election, only 44 million out of 68.8 million permanent voter cards have been collected by voters and this has compelled the electoral body to shift the closing date of the collection to February 8.

Zachary said one of the major challenge the Commission is facing is that of low distribution of the cards – about 11 states out of the 36 states distributed less than 60 percent of the cards.

“We’ve sometimes just had one person at some distribution stations. Now we put two but the cost is very high, it has eaten up all the money as we have to pay INEC staff extra for staying late,” Zachary said.