BAUCHI, Nigeria — Suspected Boko Haram extremists attacked polling stations and destroyed election material in two northeastern towns, police said as Nigerians continued voting Sunday in certain areas that suffered technical glitches.
Fleeing residents said scores of the extremists are advancing on Nigeria's northeastern city of Bauchi and soldiers are engaging them with heavy gunfire.
Fighter jets flew above the city and police spokesman Haruna Muhammad said security forces had stopped a convoy of 10 vehicles of "unidentified gunmen" at Dindima village, 6 miles from Bauchi.
Residents said the convoy is carrying Boko Haram fighters who first struck at about 7:30 a.m. at Alkaleri, a town about 75 miles east of Bauchi.
Muhammad said the gunmen attacked polling stations in Kirfi and Alkaleri towns earlier Sunday.
Boko Haram extremists killed at least 41 people, including a legislator, and scared hundreds of people from polling stations in three states in the northeast on Saturday.
In electoral violence elsewhere, three people including a soldier were shot and killed in southern Rivers state and police said two car bombs exploded at polling stations in the southeast but no one was injured.
Elections were extended into Sunday in about 300 of the country's 150,000 polling stations, including some areas of Lagos, Nigeria's megacity of 20 million on the Atlantic coast, according to the country's electoral commission. The extended voting was necessary because new voting equipment failed to confirm voters' identities.
Nearly 60 million Nigerians 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.