Boko Haram terrorizes voters in Nigeria

Boko Haram killed 41 people, including a legislator, and scared off hundreds of voters, but millions more cast ballots Saturday in a closely contested presidential race in Nigeria.

The terror attacks took place before dawn in northeastern Nigeria, where the Islamic militants invaded the town of Miringa in Borno state, torching homes and shooting people as they fled. Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima said that 25 people had died.

“They had sent messages earlier warning us not to encourage democracy by participating in today’s election,” said Mallam Garba Buratai, a Miringa resident who witnessed the attack.

Boko Haram opposes democratic elections in favor of an Islamic caliphate.

In Gombe state, 14 more were killed, according to local officials. Among the dead was Gombe state legislator Garkuwan Dukku, according to Sani Dugge, a local campaign director for the opposition coalition.

Boko Haram also killed two voters at polling stations in Gombe, according to police. Elsewhere in northeastern Nigeria, gunmen fired into the air frightening people away from polling places.

Elsewhere, three people, including a soldier, were shot and killed in political thuggery in southern Rivers state, and two car bombs exploded at polling stations in the southeast but no one was injured, according to police.

Thousands of people displaced by Boko Haram were not deterred in their efforts to vote, as they lined up to cast ballots at a refugee camp in Yola, the capital of northeast Adamawa state.

“We have to wait for the time when the Nigerian army will totally wipe [Boko Haram] out before we can go back [home],” refugee Elzubairu Ali said after voting.

Nearly 60 million people have biometric cards to vote in the hotly contested election. The cards are designed to discourage voter fraud. The two front-runners among the 14 candidates for president are current President Goodluck Jonathan, a 57-year-old a Christian from the south, and former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari, 72, a Muslim from the north.

“Jonathan is our man,” 23-year-old biochemistry student Lovinah Egomti told The Wall Street Journal earlier this week. “If the president is not a Christian, Nigeria might become an Islamic country. I don’t want that.”

Nigerians are also electing 360 legislators to the House of Assembly, where the opposition currently has a slight edge over Jonathan’s party. But voting for 13 constituencies was postponed until April because of shortages of ballot papers, officials said.

In most areas, voting ended Saturday night. But polls will continue to be open Sunday in some areas, including the populous city of Lagos, where new voting machines failed to read voters’ cards, according to a spokesman for the Independent National Electoral Commission. Even President Jonathan and his wife had trouble with the card readers when they cast their ballots.

Afterward, Jonathan urged people to be patient as he had been, saying in a television interview, “I appeal to all Nigerians to be patient no matter the pains it takes as long as if, as a nation, we can conduct free and fair elections that the whole world will accept.”

Some 1,000 people were killed in rioting after Buhari lost by millions of votes to Jonathan in 2011. The political landscape dramatically changed in Nigeria two years later when the main opposition parties formed a coalition behind Buhari, with dozens of legislators defecting from Jonathan’s party. Because of the united opposition, this year’s election is expected to be much closer. Officials plan to announce the election results 48 hours after voting ends.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.