Boko Haram kills 41, prevents hundreds voting in Nigeria

Boko Haram extremists killed 41 people, including a legislator, and scared hundreds of people from polling stations but millions voted across Nigeria Saturday in the most closely contested presidential race in the nation’s history. All the Boko Haram attacks took place in northeastern Nigeria, where the military Friday announced it had cleared the Islamic extremists from all major centers, including the headquarters of their so-called Islamic caliphate. Nearly 60 million people have cards to vote, and for the first time there is a possibility that a challenger can defeat a sitting president in the high-stakes contest to govern Africa’s richest and most populous nation.

We have to wait for the time when the Nigerian army will totally wipe them [Boko Haram] out before we can go back [home].

Refugee Elzubairu Ali

Polling will continue Sunday in some areas where new machines largely failed to read voters’ biometric cards, said Kayode Idowu, spokesman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Earlier, before dawn, Boko Haram extremists invaded the town of Miringa in Borno state, torching people’s homes and then shooting them as they tried to escape the smoke. Twenty-five people died in the attack, Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima told a news conference in the city of Maiduguri.

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