ABUJA, Nigeria (CNN) -- An attempt to crash a truck bomb into Nigeria's national election headquarters, just hours before polls were to open in a historic presidential election, failed according to Nigeria's national police chief.
The driver apparently jumped out of the fuel tanker after placing a rock on its gas pedal, aiming it toward the electoral commission headquarters in Abuja. The truck then veered into a street lamp post, Police Inspector General Sunday Ehindero said on national television.
The truck, which was loaded with gas cylinders, did not explode and there were no injuries, he said.
The attempted attack came just before sunrise on the day when Nigerians are voting in a national election to choose a new president.
The vote is intended to mark a democratic milestone for Africa, the first handover from one civilian president to another in the continent's most populous nation.
While the incident did not delay voting, slow ballot distribution did, according to a CNN correspondent at the scene..
Hundreds of citizens were lined up waiting for the arrival of paper ballots at a suburban Abuja polling place more than an hour after the 10 a.m. official starting time. An election official told CNN the ballots were on the way.
At least 49 people have been killed since chaotic state elections last weekend and many more have been reported dead in earlier political violence, according to The Associated Press.
In a national address Friday, outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo pleaded with citizens to vote peacefully.
Ehindero also said that militants who battled government forces for hours on the eve of the vote in an oil-rich southern state had been seeking to kidnap the governor, who's also the ruling party's vice presidential candidate.
The gun battle raged for several hours Friday in Yenagoa, the capital of southern Bayelsa state. Ehindero said the gunmen sought to kidnap Goodluck Jonathan, the state governor and vice presidential candidate for the ruling People's Democratic Party, was scheduled to be in his home state to vote on Saturday.
The gunfire ended after about two hours.
Elsewhere Friday, gunmen attacked a boat carrying workers to an oil rig in waters off Nigeria's unruly southern Niger Delta region, wounding six passengers, officials said.
More than 150 foreigners have been kidnapped over the past year in the southern region where crude is pumped in Africa's largest producer. Stepped-up violence has trimmed Nigeria's daily production by about one quarter, helping send global crude prices higher.
CNN's Isha Sesay in Abuja contributed to this report
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