Having shunned South African and other offers of help, the independent electoral commission is under pressure to deliver on the second time of asking.

Security is a red button issue for the 84 million registered Nigerian voters.

They need to feel safe going to the polls to tomorrow.

And the authorities are painfully aware that if they want to convince people their long-term safety is being safeguard the best way of starting is by securing a safe election.

Fighting for a second term, Muhammadu Buhari has several times boasted that his forces have beaten Boko Haram’s insurgency in north east Nigeria.

Yet the Islamist terrorists have consistently mounted attacks on civilians.

The threat of their presence is the biggest deterrent to voters in this part of the country bordering Chad and Niger.

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An unknown number were stoned to death, at least ten were crushed with an armoured car and three were killed by a landmine that exploded as they walked to freedom. Others died in the crossfire during the rescue operation.

Accounts of the slaughter of woman and girls by Islamist militants comes from captives themselves now removes from the conflict zone in the northeast of the country.

Nigeria’s military says it freed nearly 700 Boko Haram hostages in the past week.

They’re still trying to ascertain if any are so-called Chibok girls, whose mass abduction from their school a year ago sparked outrage worldwide.

Some of the girls say they had been picked out for marriage to Boko Haram militants.

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It is the last bolt hole for Boko Haram terrorists and is believed to be where they are still holding some of the schoolgirls they kidnapped a year ago.

Steadily taking back territory seized by the Islamist terror group Boko Haram, Nigerian planes have been straffing the Samibisa forest for some months.

The militants, who’ve killed thousands since their offensive started six year ago designed to create a caliphate in the north east of Africa’s most populous country, have several bases in the forest.

Nigerian forces have thusfar stopped short of attacking these bases, where they believe some of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls are being held, for fear of further endangering the hostages.

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