Nigeria Police Arrest Four After Election Day Blast, Shooting in Maiduguri

A group of attackers in Nigeria threw an explosive at a police patrol in the northeastern city of Maiduguri and fought a gun battle with officers before four of them were arrested, police said.

Nobody was hurt by the blast, the second in two days in the city that is the capital of Borno state. “The impact shattered the windscreen of the rear vehicle” in the patrol group, the police said in a statement handed to reporters.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, is voting today in an election to choose a president to lead the nation until 2015. President Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian, is being challenged by 18 rivals, with northern Muslims Muhammadu Buhari and Nuhu Ribadu among the top contenders. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is roughly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.

Authorities in Nigeria’s north have blamed a group known as Boko Haram, which draws inspiration from Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, for a spate of bomb attacks and killings targeting government officials and the security forces since last year.

There was a blast late yesterday at a Maiduguri office of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Police Commissioner Mike Zuokumor told reporters. Earlier in the day two people, including a soldier, were killed and seven others injured when unknown gunmen opened fire on residents in the city’s Gwange distract, according to police.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ardo Hazzad in Bauchi via Accra at ebowers1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.