At least 25 persons were killed on Wednesday in Kaduna, in what appeared to be an assassination attempt on former Head of State, Gen Mohammadu Buhari.
Reports said about 90 minutes after the first attack, a second explosion ripped through the crowded Kawo area, targeting the motorcade of Gen Buhari, a former military ruler of Nigeria and a senior member of the All Progressive Congress party.
Gunmen rammed a vehicle into his convoy, firing shots at it, BBC reportss, adding that two of Gen Buhari’s bodyguards were slightly wounded in the attack.
“We have recorded a blast which is apparently a suicide blast targeting the convoy of Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi,” who escaped unhurt, Kaduna police chief, Umar Shehu, said.
“Twenty-five people have so far been confirmed dead,” he added.
The explosion went off at roughly 12:30pm (1130 GMT) as Bauchi’s convoy was driving in an open-roofed truck, greeting well-wishers who had assembled for the closing of a prominent Koranic festival.
Bauchi, like most of Nigeria’s prominent Muslim leaders, has publicly condemned Boko Haram’s brutal five-year uprising aimed at creating a strict Islamic state in the north.
The insurgents have accused Nigeria’s senior cleric of betraying the faith by submitting to the authority of a secular government, currently led by a devout Christian, President Goodluck Jonathan.
The state government has now imposed a 24-hour curfew and people in the city are making their way to their homes.