Voting had to be extended last night in areas where polls opened late or voting was disrupted by ballot machine malfunctioning.

President Muhammadu Buhari, seeking a second term, says he’s confident of victory in Africa’s largest election to date.

Equally buoyant  is former vice president Atiku Abubaker in a contest that’s too close to call.

The election, which was a week late because of organizational problems, was marred by violence in the north east and south of the country.

Authorities, who initially denied it, admit that Islamist terror group Boko Haram fired artillery shells into Maiduguri in an unsuccessful bid to seize the Borno state capital. 

One soldier was killed 

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There were shots fired in the north east and south of the continent’s most populous country where the result is too close to call.

Both Muhammadu Buhari, vying for a second term as Nigeria’s president, and Atiku Abubaker his main opponent for the position, cast their ballots early today.

The polls stayed open for just six hours.

Security force said the shots heard in Maiduguri, where terrorist group Boko Haram has threatened would-be voters, were simply a drill.

There was no explanation for why the gunfire rang through the southern city of Port Harcourt.

Voting was delayed for several hours in a number of centers.

The election had been posponed for a week because of organizational problems.

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The Nigerian military claims the newspaper endangered national security by reporting on the fights against Islamist extremist Boko Haram.

Daily Trust was among many news outlets that reported on Boko Haram overrunning a military base in Northeast Nigeria.

Armed soldiers raided its offices in Maiduguri, the centre of the Boko Haram’s theatre of operations and in the nation’s capital Abuja and commercial capital Lagos.

They seized computers and arrested journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores this attack on press freedom.

It calls for the release of the journalists and the return of equipment.

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No-one’s claimed responsibility for the attack that bears the hallmark of Boko Haram.

The attack at a Maiduguri market in northeastern Nigeria was targeted at soldiers guarding an electrical installation.

The suicide bombers are among those killed.  17 people were seriously injured.

The girls were stopped as they entered the market.

They could not speak Hausa or Kanuri. Soldiers say they appeared unsettled.

Boko Haram has used scores of women and girls in suicide bombings, prompting suspicions that some are among the many thousands that they have kidnapped over the years.

In a particularly horrific instance, a woman suicide bomber carrying a baby on her back was shot by soldiers at a checkpoint on Nov. 28. The shot detonated her explosives, killing the woman and the baby.

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Human Rights Watch says Nigerian officials have been sexually exploiting women and girls at several camps set up for Boko Haram victims in the northeastern city of Maidiguri.

The group said the 43 cases of camp leaders, policemen, soldiers and vigilante groups carrying out sexual abuse, including rape and exploitation were documented in July.

HRW researcher Mausi Segun says it’s disgraceful and outrageous that people who should protect these women and girls are attacking and abusing them.

Nigerian government officials have not responded to the allegations.

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Several officials of aid groups within the world organisation were seriously wounded.

The UN is reviewing  of the security situation in the northeast Nigeria which is a stronghold for the militants.

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The convoy came under attack traveling from Bama to Maiduguri in Borno State after delivering desperately needed humanitarian assistance.

The UN’s calling it an attack on the people who most need the assistance and aid that these workers were bringing.

UNICEF, which is one the groups assaulted works in 190 countries to promote the rights and wellbeing of every child, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children.

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Graves are being dug daily to bury victims – mostly children – of the malnutrition in the second largest centre in Borno State that’s cut off by Boko Haram militants.

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A Medicines Sans Frontiers  team accessed Bama where 24 000 people, including 15 000 children, are living in a camp located in a hospital compound.

It discovered an acute health crisis.

A fifth of the more than 800 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

Sixteen severely malnourished children at immediate risk of death were taken to the MSF in-patient therapeutic feeding centre in the state capital Maiduguri.

The team counted 1 233 graves near the camp that have been dug in the past year; 480 of them are for children who had starved to death at a rate of between eight and 30 a day.

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This follows a carnage that left at least 50 people dead in in the Borno state capital Maiduguri.

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The Boko Haram declaration was made by the group’s leader Abubaker Shekau.

Their six- year fight to establish an Islamic caliphate in north easter Nigeria has left thousands

dead and has spread to neighbouring states.

Boko Haram has been formally associated with Al Qaida.

The alignment with Islamic State comes as no surprise. Boko Haram’s harsh ideology and actions

mirror those of IS.

It provides a propaganda boost for the Boko Haram and an injection of energy for IS whose

operations in Iraq and Syria are very much stalled on the defensive.

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Witnesses say the children were deliberately targeted by the terrorists who destroyed the village by fire.

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Boko Haram fighters are redoubling their efforts in the weeks running up the country’s most important election in decades.

The militants are amassing in the strategic town of Gwoza against a possible fight-back by military forces.

The atrocity in Njaba, some 50 kilometres from the Borno state capital Maiduguri, is aimed at vigilantes opposing the jihadis.

Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger are engaged in a joint operation against the Islamists, who have captured swathes of territory in the northeast and also begun cross-border attacks.

The military says it’s recaptured of several key towns, including Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad.

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A suicide bomber injured at least 34 Chadian troops in the action.

Dikwa’s located 90 kilometers east of the Borno state capital of Maiduguri.

A Chadian defence force spokesman says his troops have been involved in street to street fightin killing a large number of Islamists.

Chad’s put boots on the ground to help Nigeria to force Boko Haram out of the towns it holds as part of a self-declared caliphate.

The Islamists are staging cross border raids to impose Shariah, or Islamic law, staging deadly cross-border attacks in nations including Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

The violence in northeastern Nigeria, where the six-year insurgency has been focused, has forced a million people from their homes and tens of thousands to flee the country.

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