Politics
Nigeria update: Buhari to Jonathan – your administration is incompetent
“Mass just ended and people were rushing out of the church and suddenly I heard a loud sound: ‘Gbam!’ Cars were in flames and bodies littered everywhere,” Nnana Nwachukwu told Reuters.
Father Christopher Barde, Assistant priest of the church, said: “The officials who counted told me they have picked up 27 bodies so far.” Police cordoned off the area around the church. Thousands of furious youths set up burning road blocks on the highway from Abuja leading to Nigeria’s largely Muslim north.
Police and the military tried to disperse them by firing live rounds into the air with tear gas.
“We are so angry!” shouted Kingsley Ukpabi, as a queue of hooting vehicles lined up behind his flaming barrage.
Violence Spreads
Boko Haram – which in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria means “Western education is sinful”, is loosely modelled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
Its low level insurgency used to be largely confined to northeastern Nigeria, but it has struck several parts of the north, centre and Abuja this year.
Last Christmas Eve, a series of bomb blasts around Jos killed 32 people, and other people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast.
