Nigerians voted to elect their president today and tension was high in the south-east and the oil-producing delta where many heeded calls for a boycott by local opposition leaders.
Security was heavy at the 120,000 polling stations in Africa's most populous state after Nigeria's police chief threatened politicians and their "thugs" with drastic action if they tried to disrupt voting.
There were no immediate reports of trouble after the official end of polling at 2 p.m. (Irish time) voting was expected to continue in a few places to allow queues to subside.
Lagos was drenched by a huge downpour as voting ended and in one flooded street a group of umbrella-carrying polling officials and agents carrying a ballot box waded with trousers rolled up to a counting centre.
First results are expected during the night. "We hope for free and fair elections," President Olusegun Obasanjo told reporters after he cast his vote in his southwest hometown of Abeokuta.
"Police and security personnel are ready to curb violence anywhere in the country. We are optimistic there won't be violence."
Today's election for the presidency and 36 state governorships is a litmus test for democracy in a country which has spent most of its 43 years since independence governed by military juntas.
Both main presidential candidates - Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari - are ex-generals and former military rulers. Nigeria is trying to transfer power from one elected civilian government to another for the first time.
Opposition parties say last weekend's parliamentary elections were rigged by Obasanjo's ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and local opposition leaders in parts of the south called for a voters' boycott today.
Apart from the boycott calls, election officials also said their voting materials had not arrived.
Four hours after polling was due to start there was little or no voting in the oil cities of Port Harcourt and Warri in the delta region, the country's oil hub, or Enugu in the southeast heartland of the Ibo people.
Callistus Onaga, the second-ranking prelate in Enugu diocese, told Reuters it was understandable that people would boycott the election.
"People are not fools," he said. "Their votes don't count."