Nigeria: 24-hour curfew imposed in Kano following deadly attacks

A 24-hour curfew has been imposed in Nigeria's 2nd largest city of Kano after the militant Islamist group Boko Haram attacked police stations and government offices. Over 100 persons are now reportedly dead.

The Voice of America reports that many of the victims were police or soldiers. Earlier witnesses told Reuters that the bombing left windows shattered with firefighters trying to douse the flames billowing out of the roof damaged building. Eneche Akogwu, a reporter with Lagos based private television-Channels TV, was shot dead while covering the multiple bomb attacks that also affected an immigration office. According to the Voice of America, a spokesman for Boko Haram told newsmen that the co-ordinated bombings were in retaliation for the arrest of several sect members in Kano. The leader of the Islamist sect Boko Haram who wants Sharia law to be applied across Nigeria's north had described recent killings of Christians as justifiable revenge attacks, saying President Goodluck Jonathan had no power to stop the group's insurgency.