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A group of Nigeria's powerful governors have said they will back President Goodluck Jonathan for next year's elections - seen as a major boost to his campaign. Half of the 36 governors backed Mr Jonathan's bid to be selected as the ruling party's candidate.
Whoever wins the PDP nomination will be the favourite for the April 2011 poll.

Mr Jonathan, a southerner, is opposed by some in the PDP, who say the party should choose a northerner.
The PDP (People's Democratic Party) has a tradition of alternating power between north and south every two elections, meaning a northerner would normally stand in 2011.
Several northern powerbrokers have backed the campaign of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, a northerner, to be the PDP candidate.
'Principle of incumbency'

At an emergency meeting in the capital, Abuja, 18 governors and two deputies said they would support Mr Jonathan in PDP primaries on 13 January 2011.
"Democratic systems all over the world recognise the principle of incumbency and continuity," said Ibrahim Shema, governor of the northern state of Katsina, reports the Reuters news agency

The chairman of the governors' forum, Bukola Saraki, also later dissociated himself from their position, saying he would support a candidate from the north.
The PDP has 26 of Nigeria's 36 state governors and, in the party's structures, they wield considerable power.

In previous primaries, they have instructed delegates from their states how to vote.
So the BBC's Bashir Saad Abdullahi in Abuja says their announcement is a significant boost for Mr Jonathan.

But he says that if state delegates vote independently, rather than how governors tell them, Mr Abubakar could still secure the party's nomination.
Mr Jonathan became president in February after the death of Umaru Yar'Adua, a northerner.
He is the first president from Nigeria's southern, oil-producing Delta region.

Nigeria's recent elections have been tarnished by fraud and violence.
Mr Jonathan has promised to introduce electoral reforms, but correspondents say it will be difficult to implement radical changes before April.
The main opposition candidates are former anti-corruption campaigner Nuhu Ribadu and Gen Muhammadu Buhari.

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If the court accepts Moreno Ocampo's application, it means the individuals will be expected to voluntarily appear before the court and may not be detained at The Hague, where the tribunal sits.
"The responsibility of six individuals who in accordance with the evidence bear the greatest responsibility for the crimes committed will be evaluated in court. These people will go to The Hague," Moreno Ocampo told a conference reviewing the progress Kenya has made in implementing key reforms seen as necessary to avoid a repeat of the violence almost three years ago.
"The judges will make final decisions if they have to go to jail at the end of a fair judicial process," he said. Moreno Ocampo plans to present two cases of three individuals each.
"There are no doubts that massive crimes were committed in Kenya, the issue is who is responsible," he said. "This is my challenge. To prove who are the most responsible for the crimes committed."
The Kenya case will not be the first time the prosecutor has asked the court to issue summons instead of arrest warrants. In June, two Sudanese rebel leaders suspected in a deadly 2007 attack against African Union peacekeepers in Darfur voluntarily surrendered to the ICC to face war crimes charges.
Moreno Ocampo did say that as part of its investigations, the ICC invited individuals who had been named in separate reports on the December 2007-February 2008 violence to offer their version of what happened. More than 1,000 people died in the violence that began after President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner of a disputed December 2007 poll.
A former Cabinet minister who was named by a government-funded human rights organization in its report went to the Hague last month to record a statement. His visit has been followed by controversy over allegations that a witness protection program may have been compromised


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"Anyone else who still possesses the video and shares it with others risks being charged. The students in the act will be regarded as participants in the creation of child porn."
Ndamase said there was no minimum sentence for the offences relating to child pornography.
"Sentencing trends for such offences range from imprisonment terms of five years and upwards.
The Grade 8 pupil is feeling suicidal. Yesterday her mother said: "My daughter is not coping well. She is suicidal. I just hope the police continue with the investigations."
About her going back to school, she said: "The government will take care of that. She will have to go to another school next year. I don't think she will be able to go back this year."
The police said they would continue to investigate a gang- rape case against two Jules High pupils.
The National Prosecuting Authority on Tuesday dropped the charges against the boys because of a lack of evidence.
Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant Mzwandile Petros said the police had strong evidence and were hopeful of reopening the case.
Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga said the South African Council of Educators was investigating allegations that teachers at the school said the girl "deserved" to be raped.

London, England-based Afren PLC said two Indonesians, two Americans, two French and one Canadian were kidnapped. The Indonesians were not included in an earlier tally released by the company.
Two crew members are in stable condition at a shore-based clinic, where they were airlifted after being wounded in the leg.

The rig, located off the southern coast of Nigeria at Okoro field, is run by Transocean.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. is in contact with Nigerian officials.
"We [are], of course, concerned about their safety and hope for their immediate release," he said. "We are working with Nigerian authorities ... to pursue their prompt release, and there's an investigation already under way."

"The situation has not been resolved. Afren is doing everything it can to resolve the situation as quickly as possible, and it is working with relevant agencies in the Nigerian government,"

Transocean operates six offshore rigs in Nigeria -- two deepwater rigs, two ultra-deepwater rigs and two shallow-water rigs, including the one involved in the incident, according to Cantwell.
The company has "taken additional safety precautions" on its other assets in the west African nation, said Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for the Houston, Texas-based company.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, and Nigerian officials would not comment about the incident. Several militant groups in the oil-rich Niger Delta have been battling the government for years over the distribution of the country's oil wealth. One of the largest such groups -- the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta -- is known for its kidnappings of oil workers.

State Security Service (SSS) and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) are set on warpath over seizure of large consignments of arms and ammunition illegally imported into the country by yet to be identified persons, with indications showing that heads may roll in Customs over the matter. Customs had continued to lay claim to the seizure of the  consignments brought into Apapa Port, saying it intercepted the items since last July and was still carrying out investigations on how they came into the country.
However, findings show that the SSS has faulted the submission of Customs while laying claim to the actual seizure of the arms and ammunition, which came in 13 containers.

Sources at SSS, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Saturday Tribune that operatives of the security agency discovered the shock find in the course of investigations and immediately alerted the Federal Government and the entire world.
“Customs cannot in any way lay claim to the discovery of the huge weapons because if it was true that they intercepted them since last July, why did they not alert the appropriate quarters and what investigation have they done on the matter? And who have they arrested so far?” a source told Saturday Tribune.
Saturday Tribune gathered that the Federal Government is not taking the issue lightly as it is said to have resolved not to spare those that may be found to be involved in the alleged criminal importation and their collaborators.

Indications are that a shakeup is imminent in the Nigeria Customs Service with possibility of some top officers losing their jobs and facing prosecution.
The Comptroller General of Customs (CG), Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko, warned importers of explosives and their collaborators to beware, declaring that there was no hiding place for them in the country.
The CGC, who inspected the 13 containers laddened with arms and ammunition on Thursday at the AP Muller Terminal, Apapa Port, pinned the discovery to latest equipment being used by the force to detect such illicit cargoes even as he disclosed that investigations into the circumstances surrounding the illegal importation were ongoing.
Dikko visited the place along with some of his principal staff officers from Customs Headquarters, Abuja, at about 3.30 p.m. amid tight security.
He stated that his department was fully ready and fortified to burst importation of illegal cargoes into the country.
“I want to warn those who are into importation of arms and ammunition and their collaborators to stay away from the nation’s ports or the long arm of the law would soon catch up with them. When it does, the full weight of the law shall be brought to bear on such person or groups of persons. There is no untouchable as far as the importation of illegal arms is concern,” he added.
Meanwhile, the illegal arms shipment discovered in Lagos this week was loaded in Iran by an Iranian trader, the firm that operates the vessel that delivered it said on Friday.

“The shipment in question was booked as a ‘shippers owned container’ and supplied loaded and sealed by the shipper, an Iranian trader who does not appear on any ‘forbidden persons’ listing,” said CMA CGM, which operates the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), CMA CGM, based in France, said the containers were loaded in Bandar Abbas, a southern port city of Iran,  and discharged in Lagos in July.
According to the firm, last week, the shipper asked to have the containers reloaded and sent to the Gambia.
Clearance had been obtained before Nigerian customs intervened and halted the shipment, according to CMA CGM.

Iranian embassy officials in Nigeria refused to comment, saying a statement would be issued later.
An intelligence agency spokeswoman has said authorities were on heightened alert following October 1 twin car bombings in the capital that killed at least 12 people.
Ten of the containers opened so far contain an array of weaponry, customs spokesman, Wale Adeniyi said, despite being declared as building materials.
CMA CGM said it has been cleared of any involvement in the illegal shipment and called itself the “victim of (a) false cargo declaration.”
Two people have reportedly been arrested in connection with the cargo, but security officials have not confirmed the reports.

Authorities have publicly refused to speculate on the origins or destination of the shipment, coming just months before presidential elections, but have heightened port security.
“Certainly security at the ports has been beefed up and we are trying to move up ahead ... and tighten our own systems to block such shipments,” Adeniyi told AFP.
Regarding paperwork for the shipment that contained the weapons, Adeniyi said “the documents were irregular... and we felt that the names given on them were false.”
He added that the precise quantities of the weapons will be known after all the containers were opened.
So far, the 10 examined contained “similar contents — mortars, grenades, light ammunition and of course tiles,” said Adeniyi.

The ship’s last port of call before arriving in Nigeria was India’s Jawaharlal Nehru port near Mumbai, the customs service has said. The vessel berthed in the Nigerian port on July 10 and sailed out on July 15.

It is now certain that elections in 2011 would hold on or before April 2011. There have been much of rigmaroles by INEC and the National Assembly on time of elections before April popped up as terminal date. Idowu Samuel writes about matters arising on 2011 elections.


Twice in quick succession, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is winning the sympathy of the National Assembly on the programmes it drew for 2011 general elections. The quick victories by INEC on the front of the parliament, without much emphasis, are an indication of how dearly the rest of Nigeria holds the issue of transition to the next phase of democracy.

Early in the year, INEC had caused a robust suspicion to well up in the Nigerian public against it about the huge cost it proposed for conduct of voter’s registration exercise. The Attahiru Jega-led INEC proposed the sum of N89 billion for purchase of machines meant for voters registration, and for other issues, including training of staff for the registration exercise. A disproportionate number of Nigerians had screamed at the huge cost and contended that the money, if appropriated, would not be spent on voters registration alone, but may be channeled into other unholy avenues meant to serve the interest of some powerful individuals who are eying biggest political offices in 2011.

The demand by INEC for such huge sum brought it face-to-face with the National Assembly, which initially made castigation of officials for the fat proposal. Jega had to make unlimited shuttles between the Senate and the House of Representatives chambers, making emotive defense of the election budget, as he repeatedly justified every penny that added up to make N89 billion.

To convince the legislators on the necessity for them to appropriate the sum for INEC, Jega sworn by his personal integrity, contending that he would see to the judicious spending of the sum if offered to INEC, stressing rather that if at the end, the amount budgeted had some remainder, he would not hesitate to return such to the national treasury.

Before the suspicion by INEC could turn into blackmail which hung around a possible denial of INEC the chances to give Nigeria free and fair elections in 2011, the leadership of the National Assembly resolved to fast track the release of the sum of N87 billion for the electoral commission, and, in the process, offered Jega very strong admonition to take the sum and apply his mind to ensuring free and fair elections in 2011 and not coming back to offer excuses on the conduct of the elections.
For the 2011 elections, both the Senate and the House of Representatives had altered the provision of the 1999 Constitution to peg the dates for January. The two chambers had agreed to fix the time-line between the elections and handover date to maximum of 90 days and minimum of 60 days. It was on that basis that INEC fixed the commencement of electoral process for October 2010, leaving other political parties to follow suit.
While preparations for the elections were on, INEC suddenly threw the spanner. It told the world that the January date set for take off of 2011 elections was unrealistic. It was perhaps only a few who believed that the Jega INEC was not really up to some pranks.

On that strength, critics began to express suspicion that the call for postponement of election dates was masterminded by the Presidency. Those who aligned with this school of thought felt that INEC was prevailed upon to call for shift of election dates in order to prepare ground for President Goodluck Jonathan to adjust with his desire to contest in the 2011 presidential election. The impression then was that had the election been allowed to hold in January as initially proposed, Jonathan could easily be overrun in the presidential election, since he was not known to have a muscle bearing political structure to win the election.

The Presidency had lent credence to the suspicion when it quickly prepared a bill to seek the second amendment to the constitution and the Electoral Act to accommodate the new date of election as demanded by INEC. It did not stop at that, it also requested for further amendment of the constitution to reverse the initial amendments effected in the constitution by the National Assembly.

In the fresh proposal by the executive arm, the sequence of elections which specified that the National Assembly election should be held first was to be altered. The Presidency again made effort to convince the lawmakers on the need to allow automatic delegates to vote during the primaries by political parties, just as it requested that the power to determine the nature of primaries should rest with political parties. The National Assembly, no doubt, considered the proposal by the Presidency a misnomer.  The Senate in particular threw the recommendations out, while the House of Representatives simply looked away and refused to entertain it.
Meanwhile, the two Houses consider the issue of new date of elections as germane and important. In the amendment which both Houses passed during the week, INEC now had between now and April next year to fix new dates for elections.

For instance, both Houses altered Section 5 (b) of the First Alteration Act by setting aside the 90 days maximum time-line and 30 days minimum for the election as they considered 150 days maximum and 120 days minimum as appropriate, in line with request for shift of election dates by INEC.
The alteration also affected Section 10 of the First Alteration Act, which is altered in Paragraph (b) “by substituting for the words 150 days and not later than 120 days before”, in lines 2 and 3, the words “90 days and not later than 30 before.” Sections 11 and 17 of the First Alteration Act was equally altered in the same format.

With the turn of events, INEC now has a full mandate to get into the fray of electoral business with a view to putting in place preparations that will assure Nigerians that it could be trusted for ability to conduct free and fair elections in 2011. It has more than sufficient dates to toy with in this regard.
Notwithstanding, INEC must wait a while for the National Assembly to get through the process of amending the constitution. The National Assembly has one more task to perform before the constitution could become operational. It must secure the endorsement of two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation for the amendment it had carried out so far. It is after the endorsement by the states and harmonisation of the views of the states with the National Assembly that the constitution could become law of the federation.

Then the onus of fixing new dates of election will rest on INEC. By implication, INEC has between now and April to tell Nigeria when it hopes the next general elections will hold.
There are indications that INEC may opt for the months of February and March to kick-start the process of next year’s elections in order to gain sufficient times to attend to post-election challenges, according to officials who spoke with Saturday Tribune.
Going by National Assembly’s, litigations arising from 2011 elections would only be attended to within 90 days for appeal court tribunal and 30 days for election tribunals. The idea is to avoid the problem of long time-lag for complaints on elections to be determined, contrary to the current experience in which case litigations over the 2007 elections are still pending before appeal courts.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Friday said that it did not forward any advisory list to the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP).
This is contrary to reports by some newspapers.  The EFCC said that the list published was downloaded from their website and that the list was that of politicians that are having pending criminal cases against them.
Chairman of the Commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri, who stated this in Abuja when the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA) paid her a courtesy visit at the commission’s headquarters, said the move was part of the intrigues and blackmail, which the commission has been going through.
According to Mrs. Waziri,  ”I am a lawyer and I know the process to follow. I am not dabbling into constitutional matters, the list in question did not emanate from EFCC.
“I only woke up on that fateful morning and I watched the discussion on the “platform”, a television programme, where it was said that we released a list of politicians that should not be allowed to contest in 2011 on the platform of the PDP.
“I immediately called my top officials to confirm, but they all told me that they never released any list to the media. I see the act as part of the blackmail which the commission has been experiencing.
“Anyway, we are used to it. I am not frightened, neither am I scared because we are doing the right thing. If I tell you what I have been going through, you will know that my existence is by the grace of God.”
Earlier, the President of NBA, Mr. J.B Daudu (SAN), commended the commission for the strides it has achieved in tackling corruption, adding that the association was ready to partner with the commission in its move to eradicate corruption.