Nigerians vote in presidential elections

A truck bomb aimed at electoral commission headquarters ran into barriers and failed to explode today, hours before the start of a Nigerian presidential vote already shadowed by violence, charges of fraud and a last-minute ballot hitch.

Voting centres nonetheless opened on time. In a lagoon-side slum in the sprawling city of Lagos where fishermen live in stilt houses, voters dropped their tally sheets into clear, plastic boxes. Elsewhere, electoral workers were still scrambling to unpack ballots and arrange ballot boxes.