Explosive device found in university lecture hall in Kano

Mohammed Abubakar, Inspector General of the Nigerian Police Force

KANO (AFP) – An explosive device was found on Tuesday in lecture hall at a university in northern city just before students arrived for an examination, an official said.

The device planted in the lecture theatre at the Federal College of Education (FCE) in Kano was discovered by a campus security guard and dismantled before causing any damage.

In April, attackers suspected of belonging to the radical Boko Haram Islamist group killed roughly 20 people at the nearby Bayero University, Kano.

They set off bombs at a Sunday morning campus church service, then opened fire as worshippers tried to flee.

“This morning, something suspected to be an improvised explosive device has been successfully detected and detonated by the anti-bomb squad of the Nigeria police in the college,” said FCE spokesman Auwalu Mudi Yakasai in a statement.

He added that the exams would continue uninterrupted.

It was not immediately clear who planted the device, but Boko Haram, responsible for scores of attacks across northern and central Nigeria in recent months, has hit Kano repeatedly in the past.

The name Boko Haram, a combination of Hausa and Arabic, means “Western education is forbidden.”

Kano, Nigeria’s second most populous city, was the site of the group’s deadliest attack yet on January 20 when at least 185 people were killed in coordinated gun and bomb attacks.

The group has claimed the deaths of more than 1,000 people since mid-2009, and three of its presumed top leaders have been designated as global terrorists by the United States.

Eight killed as gunmen open fire on worshippers

Mohammed Abubakar

KANO (AFP) – A gun battle near a mosque in the northern city of Kano and two other shootings left at least eight people dead on Sunday in the latest violence to hit the area, authorities said.

It was not clear who was behind the attacks in the city of Kano, the largest in the mainly Muslim north, but they resembled similar incidents in the past blamed on Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

The deadliest occurred on Sunday night when gunmen opened fire in an area around a mosque while Muslims were observing Ramadan prayers and where a police team was already deployed to protect worshippers, a senior police official said.

Police and the attackers exchanged fire and one of the assailants was killed when his own explosive device went off.

Three other gunmen were shot dead by police, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The rest fled, abandoning their car and three motorcycles they came with,” the official said, adding that it was not clear whether police or the mosque was the target of the initial attack.

Earlier in the day, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the car of a Nigerian air force officer, killing the driver and an aide, while two other people were killed in a nearby neighbourhood, authorities said.

“A car of one of our officers came under attack this morning,” Air Commodore Sani Ahmed said.

“The officer’s driver and his orderly were travelling out of town, but as they reached an area called Yan-Lemo, two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the car, killing the two personnel.”

The officer was not in the car at the time, he said.

In a similar incident earlier in the day, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two people outside their house in a nearby neighourhood, said police spokesman Rilwanu Dutse.

A police source said the victims were from the mainly Christian Igbo ethnic group.

Boko Haram has carried out scores of bombings and shootings in their insurgency in the north of Africa’s most populous nation that has left hundreds dead.