20 killed as blast rocks Nigeria’s Yola market
At least 20 people are feared dead after a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in Yola, the capital of Adamawa state in north eastern Nigeria.
The blast went off on Thursday evening in the busy Yola market area.
No one has claimed responsibility yet, but the attack is widely believed to be the work of Boko Haram militants.
The insurgents, who recently took a series of defeats and lost vast territories to the Nigerian military and regional allies, seem to be on a rebound.
They have launched numerous suicide attacks across northeastern Nigerian killing scores and injuring many others.
The newly elected president of Nigeria Muhamadu Buhari is widely viewed as the most competent commander in chief to defeat Boko Haram.
The blast is said to have occurred just as people were rushing to observe their Isha, the Muslims’ late night prayer in the big city where thousands of the internally displaced persons are camped.
Defence spokesman Chris Olukolade is quoted by news sources as having confirmed the blast but stopped short of saying how many people died.
The blast in Adamawa came hours after Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and his Chadian counterpart Idris Deby renewed their cooperation to crush the group, which has conducted cross border attacks in the past years.
The Nigerian army, which in the past two months had successfully degraded Boko Haram, termed the recent attacks by the militants as “act of desperation” by a group in utter disarray.
President Idris Deby of Chad has praised President Muhammadu Buhari for his “wise decision’’ to relocate the Nigerian Military Command center from Abuja to Maiduguri, to speed up the defeat of the insurgent group, Boko Haram.
The Chadian President said the decision, which was announced in President Buhari’s inaugural address, was a right step towards restoring peace and security to states affected by terrorism, and the sub-region.