By Heidi Vogt in Abuja and Patrick McGroarty in Yola, Nigeria
ABUJA, Nigeria--Voters packed polling stations across Nigeria on
Saturday morning to choose a leader of a country where past
election disputes have set off waves of deadly violence.
The outcome of Saturday's contest, and the way Nigerians react,
will help set the trajectory of Africa's beleaguered top
economy.
The vote appeared to be going off peacefully in the majority of
the country, but Boko Haram militants attacked a polling station in
the northeastern state of Gombe, killing three police officers and
four voters, according to residents.
President Goodluck Jonathan--in power since 2010--is running
against Muhammadu Buhari, a fourth-time candidate with wide support
among Muslims in the north of the country. Mr. Jonathan's support
base is the predominantly Christian south.
An incumbent has never lost an election in Nigeria, but polls
have shown the two in a tight race. When Mr. Jonathan beat Mr.
Buhari in 2011, riots broke out across northern Nigeria, where
Muslims and Christians mingle in cities such as Kaduna and Kano.
Human Rights Watch says more than 800 were killed.
But the two men have pledged to make things different this time.
Mr. Jonathan and Mr. Buhari embraced each other in the capital on
Thursday and signed a peace pact that committed both to encouraging
a free, fair and orderly vote.
Technical snafus bedeviled early voting registration. Nigeria is
using an electronic verification system for the first time and the
hand-held machines to read cards and fingerprints were experiencing
glitches.
Many had trouble reading the biometric data on voter's cards,
causing delays. Local media reported that even President Jonathan
was having trouble--three different card readers failed to identify
Mr. Jonathan as he tried to register in his home state of
Bayelsa.
Monitors said similar reports were coming in from across the
country.
"It's certainly something we see not just in a few places. It's
not limited to one, two or three polling stations," said Eberhard
Laue, a spokesman for the European Union monitoring team.
The government went to extraordinary lengths to assure Nigerians
that they would be safe on Saturday, closing land and sea borders
for days and barring even most road traffic. Officials said a
polling station was within walking distance for most of the 50
million voters.
The election has also been complicated by the threat of Boko
Haram militants. It was delayed for six weeks to give the military
more time to beat back the insurgents, who vowed to disrupt the
vote.
In Gombe on Saturday, the militants opened fire as they drove
into village polling stations in Nafada and Dukku administrative
areas, according to residents who escaped.
"We saw the dead bodies of three policeman and a voter on the
ground," said Ibrahim Hussaini, who lives in Biri Bolawa village. A
resident of another nearby village--a man named Saleh Musa--said
the attackers then came to his polling station and shot three
voters dead.
Nigerian police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu confirmed that there
was an attack, but said he didn't have details.
The military has retaken a large amount of the northeast from
the militants, but hundreds of thousands are displaced and it is
unclear how many will actually go out to the polls in the battered
region.
Voters turned out to vote in large numbers in Maiduguri, the
capital city of Borno state, which has been at the center of the
war against Boko Haram. But in another northeast state, Adamawa,
turnout was more sparse.
Officials set up polling stations for two of the state's 21
districts in the state capital of Yola because the areas remain
deeply unsafe. At many polling stations for voters from those
districts, less than 20% of registered voters had managed to make
it to the voting booth.
"We are blaming our incumbent government," said Habu Umaru, one
of about 80 people out of 650 eligible voters in his district who
made it to the polls. "Our people have been under attack and now
you want them to travel here to exercise their civil liberty. They
don't have the means."
A year ago, Nigeria passed South Africa as the biggest economy
in Africa. Since then oil prices have plunged to half their former
value. The price drop has drained revenue from Africa's top crude
producer, hammered Nigeria's currency and dimmed its growth
outlook.
Mr. Jonathan, a 57-year-old former zoology professor, says he
will raise new revenue from a luxury tax and cut spending. Mr.
Buhari, 72, who briefly ruled Nigeria as a military dictator in the
1980s, has vowed to tackle corruption.
The tenor of the vote varied widely by location. In the capital
city of Abuja, residents openly discussed voting for rival
candidates. Building contractor Tony Julius said he had decided to
vote for Mr. Buhari but his wife was sticking with Mr. Jonathan,
who they both supported in 2011. Mr. Julius said he was tired of
constant power cuts and he didn't think Mr. Jonathan had done
enough to improve security in the north. Blessing Julius, his wife,
said she wanted to give Jonathan more time. They laughed at the
dispute and he joked about shutting her out of the house if his man
loses.
In Gombi, a town near Nigeria's northeastern border with
Cameroon that Boko Haram attacked in November and January, almost
everyone was voting for Mr. Buhari. Thousands of people waited in a
grade school courtyard to cast their ballots.
Bahiru Bamanga waited two hours to have his identity verified.
At the front of a long line under a wizened baobab tree, an
election official scanned his voting card and his left thumb.
"I need peace. I don't want to suffer always," said the
22-year-old welder. In the town, blackened steeples of three
destroyed churches loom over a row of shops destroyed during Boko
Haram's November assault.
Uwmi Garaba fled with her husband and four children into the
vast desolate plains outside of town during each Boko Haram
assault. "We expect Buhari to make it safe again in Gombi," said
the 22-year-old mother of two.
Write to Heidi Vogt at heidi.vogt@wsj.com and Patrick McGroarty
at patrick.mcgroarty@wsj.com