A suspected bomb blast killed up to eight people at a Nigerian election office today and four people, including a ruling party official, were shot dead hours before parliamentary polls.
The violence was a further blow to hopes of orderly elections in Africa's most populous nation, holding its parliamentary election a week later than planned tomorrow because of logistical chaos.
Security sources said up to eight people may have been killed and a dozen injured in the explosion in Suleja, on the northwestern edge of the capital Abuja, but neither the election commission nor the emergency services could confirm this.
"There was an explosion and there are several casualties. It was a suspected bomb blast," Yushua Shuaib, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), told Reuters.
Officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) confirmed the explosion and said they were hurrying to the scene. Security forces cordoned off streets in the town, where three people were killed and 21 injured by an explosive device thrown from a car at an election rally last month.
Nigeria is due to hold parliamentary elections on Saturday, presidential elections a week later and governorship polls in its 36 states on April 26.
The run-up to the polls has been marred by isolated bomb attacks on campaign rallies, violence blamed on a radical sect in the remote northeast and sectarian clashes in the centre of a nation roughly split between a Muslim north and Christian south.
Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 85 people have been killed in political violence linked to party primaries and election campaigns since the start of November.
Gunmen shot dead four people in the northeastern state of Borno, including an official from the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), as they prepared to distribute election materials on Friday hours ahead of the parliamentary polls, police said.
"The PDP local government secretary of Shani is among the four people shot dead this evening at the police station while the distribution of election materials was going on," a local police officer told Reuters, asking not to be named.
Senior Borno PDP politician Saidu Pindar confirmed the attack to Reuters.
Radical Islamist sect Boko Haram has been blamed for months of targeted killings of police officers and traditional leaders in Borno, but the violence has become increasingly political in the run-up to elections and many analysts believe the sect's name is being used as a front for political thuggery.
In the northern city of Kaduna, a man suspected of building bombs to disrupt the elections was killed late on Thursday when a device exploded prematurely, police said.
Violence has broken out on the eve of elections in Nigeria in the past and has often been used to intimidate the local population by making them too fearful to come out and vote.
Reuters