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NIGERIANS ARE VOTING to elect a new president today in a knife-edge contest hit by Boko Haram violence and new technology problems.
Boko Haram, the militant group whose insurgency had forced a six-week delay in voting, appeared to follow through on their warning to disrupt the process by attacking a number of polling stations in the northeastern state of Gombe, leaving at least seven dead.
“We could hear the gunmen shouting, ‘Didn’t we warn you about staying away from (the) election?’” one official said after the shootings in Birin Bolawa and Birin Fulani.
Today, Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan and Junior Minister Seán Sherlock announced Ireland is dispatching 87 tonnes of emergency supplies to help families displaced by the Boko Haram violence.
Thousands of blankets, tents, cooking kits, jerry cans and other urgent supplies are being sent to northern Cameroon, where the refugees have fled to.
The airlift, worth around €900,000 will be send this weekend from the UN humanitarian response depot in Accra, Ghana, where Irish Aid pre-positions supplies for use in global emergencies.
“I am gravely concerned about the serious security situation in north-eastern Nigeria and that large parts of the Nigerian border with Cameroon, Niger and Chad have fallen under Boko Haram’s control,” commented Minister Flanagan. “Their attacks have driven people from their homes and it is estimated that 1.5 million people have been displaced internally within Nigeria and that over 150,000 people have fled to the neighbouring countries of Cameroon, Niger and Chad.”
As the brutal actions of this group continue to spread beyond its borders into neighbouring countries, Boko Haram now represents a threat to the peace and security of the whole region. This is a particularly difficult time, given today’s elections in Nigeria.
In many areas in Nigeria, the late arrival of officials and materials delayed the accreditation process in the morning ahead of the start of voting proper from 12.30 GMT.
New handheld technology to read biometric voter identity cards is being used for the first time, which the country’s electoral commission hopes will cut voter fraud that has blighted previous elections.
An apparent card reader malfunction forced President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife Patience to leave their poll station while the problem was resolved after hanging around in the scorching heat in his home town of Otuoke.
Fourteen candidates are contesting the presidential poll, while 2,537 hopefuls from 28 parties are vying for 469 seats in the National Assembly at the same time.
- With reporting from AFP.
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Name them. I bet there’s a few there either
A. Related to someone
B. Party hacks
C. Incompetents who failed miserably everywhere else.
D. Someone with 3 state pension already
I heard there are bondholders in it also
The legend Gerald Fleming is in the pic – giving the V sign to camera – He knows the sea and wind and arrows and fronts and stuff. Wink. Goodnight.
Gerard Fleming & Co are using the equipment that Michael Fish was using back in 1987
Give them time the floods only started a month ago
They are a bit late coming together at this point. It is a pity we have a habit of been re active rather than pro acrive.
Minister Hayes during the week as an example thinking he great announcing better protection against floods. Hello minister nothing has changed in the ladt few hundred yeara all the places that flooded always were prone to floods.
Declan the limerick flood never happened before. Came from a totally different direction. Never happened in living memory.
What is the national emergency group anyway? ????….. No idea. .. Never heard of them but probably a shower of overpayed, overindulged “experts” feeding at the national troff
I may be wrong but I’ve yet to see any Civil Defence or Army Reserves out helping!
Civil defence were deployed in Cork City last night, including river rescue units.
Defence forces troops were out in limerick the other day as was the civil defence
Civil defence are deployed at a local level. My mother volunteers with them and they’ve been called out on various occasion throughout the year for flooding etc.
They don’t get nearly enough credit. Majority of them my mam works with are volunteers.
Don’t mind sitting around talking about what might happen. Go to Holland and ask the Dutch how they dealt with coastal erosion and flooding…take a shortcut and ask somebody who has already dealt with the problem and has the solution…saves money …gets results faster
I smell oodles of overtime here.
I’d say the expenses are pretty good as well.
They will reconvene in the summer
What summer?
2013
A talking shop…..
god help us if we do get a real natural disaster. There isn’t one person in kildare street with leadershio skills.
No help from the army in clonmel as shatter closed the army barracks and posted the soldiers to kilkenny Bks.just to keep big mouth Hogan happy .
Rumour has it that they reckon stricter internet controls and more pylons will greatly reduce the number of floods we are experiencing.
The piss and wind brigade!
The response, or rather lack of, by the Irish authorities to the continued bad weather and flooding is severely lacking.
A few sandbags isn’t going to be any good in situations like this and measures that will divert floodwaters and limit damage will need to be taken.
Another example of the complete lack of response is that the main online Irish data on flooding is on the OPW website and hasn’t been updated since 2009.
There is no attempt to crowdsource flooding data in realtime, a methodology which has been successfully used in other countries.
Is it not a bit illogical to have the National Emergency Coordination Centre right in the centre of Dublin? If the emergency were anything besides weather, the centre of the capital might not be the best place to be.
It’s about time national fire ambulance. Service. Mr sean hogan against this if look at fire service some refuse to Ture out flooding.
Alot of county’s, I’d say most, (retained anyways), don’t turn out to flooding. It’s crazy. They’d rather send the civil defence cos it’s free. I’d love to see the chaos in the country if the gardai was run like the fire service. In this country they under-react to everything, and when something goes tits up they cover there arses till it’s forgotten about.
Irelands Justice League?
Nothing
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