Car Bomb in Nigerian Capital Kills 71 People, Police Report (1)

Bloomberg News

At least 71 people died when a car bomb detonated at a crowded bus station in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, during the morning rush hour, police said.

President Goodluck Jonathan blamed the Islamist militant group Boko Haram for the bombing during a visit to the scene. About 124 people were injured in the attack, which destroyed 16 buses and damaged 24 other vehicles, police spokesman Frank Mba told reporters at the scene. Witnesses said as many as 200 people were killed.

'When the bomb exploded, it caught four large buses filled with passengers and many smaller ones, destroying them completely,' Yakubu Pam, a bus driver who passed by the area 20 minutes after the blast, said in an interview. Chika Okorie, a resident of Nyanya district where the blast occurred, said she believed as many as 300 people died.

Security forces in Africa's biggest oil producer are fighting a four-year-old insurgency by Boko Haram, which has killed thousands of people in gun and bomb attacks in the country's north and Abuja. Nigeria's population of about 170 million is roughly split between a mainly Muslim north and a largely Christian south.

Jonathan ordered heightened security in Abuja, a city of about 1 million people, his spokesman Reuben Abati said on his Twitter account.

General Elections

Nigeria's Stock Exchange All-Share Index weakened 0.5 percent at 1.01 p.m. in the commercial capital, Lagos, the biggest fall on intraday basis since April 1. The naira snapped a three-day gain, weakening 0.2 percent to 161.11 per dollar. Yields on Eurobonds due July 2023 rose 1 basis point to 5.718 percent.

With less than a year before general elections, Nigerian security forces are increasingly stretched in their efforts to quell violence and lawlessness across huge swathes of the country, which has Africa's biggest economy.

'People are worried that the government has not been able to take action that assures them that it's on top of the security situation in the country,' Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Abuja-based Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, said by phone from the capital. 'The question that comes up is whether the government can really describe itself as a strong, big economy when it cannot provide security?'

Boko Haram attacked the United Nations building in Abuja in 2011 and has bombed churches in the city.

Sinful Education

In northeastern Nigeria, the violence has claimed more than 4,000 lives and forced almost half a million to flee their homes, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said this month.

Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northeastern states in May to fight Boko Haram, which means 'western education is a sin' and has carried out a violent campaign to impose Shariah, or Islamic law, in the country.

'We urgently need new methods and strategies to deal with our security issues, including accepting foreign assistance,' Atiku Abubakar, a former Vice President who defected from the ruling People's Democratic Party to the opposition All Progressives Congress in February, said on his Twitter account.

To contact the reporters on this story: Elisha Bala-Gbogbo in Abuja at ebalagbogbo@bloomberg.net; Dulue Mbachu in Abuja at dmbachu@bloomberg.net; Chris Kay in Lagos at ckay5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nasreen Seria at nseria@bloomberg.net Karl Maier, Michael Gunn