A bomb exploded on the outskirts of Nigeria's capital Abuja on Thursday, killing 12 people, a week before the city was to host a summit of leaders and business executives focused on Africa's growth prospects, emergency services said, according to The Associated Press.
The explosion hit the suburb of Nyanya, close to the site of a morning rush hour bomb attack at a bus station last month that killed at least 75 people, the AP reported. The April 14 attack was claimed by the radical Islamist movement Boko Haram which is waging an insurgency against President Goodluck Jonathan's government, but there have been no claims for Thursday's attack.
The national emergency management agency said it had transported dead and injured to hospital, according to the AP. "At least nine lifeless bodies have been deposited in the mortuary while 11 unconscious victims are receiving medical attention in different hospitals in Abuja," NEMA spokesman Manzo Ezekiel said in a statement.
Boko Haram, which is seeking to carve out an Islamist enclave in Nigeria, the top oil producer, had threatened further attacks after the April 14 bombing, the AP reported.
The latest attack is an embarrassment for Jonathan's government, which had announced a massive security operation to protect the World Economic Forum on Africa scheduled for May 7-9 in Abuja, according to the AP. The forum, a regional replica of the Davos, Switzerland event, brings together international leaders, policy makers, entrepreneurs and philanthropists.
The government and the military have been under intense pressure to step up security in the country following the April 14 attack and the mass abduction by suspected Boko Haram militants the same day of more than 200 teenage schoolgirls snatched from a northeastern school, the AP reported.Some of the girls escaped but most are still missing.
Nigeria faces an election 10 months away which many fear will exacerbate existing political, ethnic and religious tensions, according to the AP.
