Nigeria elections: Explosions heard hours before presidential vote

Multiple bomb blasts rocked the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri just hours before presidential polls opened Saturday.

The explosions happened at a camp for internally displaced refugees at around 5 a.m. local time Saturday, Nigerian army spokesman Onyeama Nwachukwu told CNN. There were no reports of any deaths or injuries.

“There was an attack this morning at the camp by the militants, but the military has suppressed it at the moment,” Nwachukwu said, adding that the army was still assessing the situation.

Elsewhere, police told CNN that three people were killed and one wounded in election-related violence in Rivers state in the southeast.

One of the first voters casts his ballots for presidential and parliamentary seats on Saturday, February 23, at the Unguwar Sarki polling station in Kaduna, Nigeria.

A polling station worker checks and counts ballot papers at Badarawa Junction polling station in Kaduna.

People peer through a window as party agents huddle together to watch votes being counted inside a polling station in Kano, Nigeria.

Electoral commission officers count votes at the Shagari Primary School polling station in Yola, Nigeria.

People line up to vote in Kaduna, Nigeria, on February 23.

Nigerians line up to vote in Kaduna, Nigeria.

Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari, gestures to supporters after casting his vote in his hometown of Daura.

Presidential candidate and main opposition leader Atiku Abubakar casts his vote along with his wife, Amina Titilayo Atiku-Abubakar, at Agiya polling station in Yola.

Nigerians wait to vote in Maiduguri.

People line up to vote in the presidential election a few hours before polls open at Shagari Health Unit polling station in Yola.

A staff member of the Independent National Electoral Commission marks the thumb of a voter at a polling unit in Lagos.