ABUJA – Performers hold flares during a late-night ceremony commemorating Nigeria’s 50th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule in the capital Abuja. Car bomb explosions killed eight people and injured three near a parade in the city yesterday, police said.
Two blasts, which also destroyed three cars, came an hour after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), Nigerias biggest rebel militia, warned it had planted several bombs and told people to evacuate the area.
A cameraman said security forces and firemen in Abuja had been dousing a fire in a car after the first explosion when a second blast hit, about 1km from the parade ground where hundreds of Nigerian and foreign dignitaries sat.
“Two car bombs exploded and eight people are confirmed dead,” Abuja police spokesman Jimoh Moshood told media.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who faces an election early next year, arrived in an armoured limousine shortly after the bomb threat.
His office issued a statement condemning the attack and vowing to bring its perpetrators to justice. Mend has been fighting for a greater share of oil revenues from the Niger Delta, home to Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry.
Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/ Reuters