Police confirm at least four dead and 34 injured in an explosion under investigation in Borno state
Aug. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
At least 13 people have died in Nigeria during the first 24 hours of a series of nationwide protests against the Nigerian government’s economic management, according to estimates by the NGO Amnesty International that have not yet been verified by the authorities in the African country.
The National Police have confirmed at least four dead and 34 injured, many of them seriously, in an explosion that occurred during a rally in Borno state, according to the inspector general, Kayode Egbetokun, in a message posted on his social network account X.
The protests, dubbed #EndBadGovernance, are taking place in major cities across the country, and on Friday police in the country’s capital, Abuja, fired tear gas to disperse groups of protesters gathered at the Berger Bridge.
According to Amnesty, at least six people have been killed in Suleja, near the capital, and another four in Maiduguri, in the north-east of the country, and three in Kaduna, in the north-west.
Katsina State Police have confirmed the arrest of at least 50 people in the region alone, police spokesman Abubakar Aliyu said in comments reported by the news portal PR Nigeria. The Premium Times newspaper, meanwhile, confirmed violent incidents in the cities of Kano, Gombe, Yobe, and Niger State.
The protests are fuelled by rising prices for petrol, food and electricity, which have pushed inflation to its highest level in nearly three decades. Protesters blame reforms introduced by the country’s president, Ahmed “Bola” Tinubu since he took office in May last year, including the removal of subsidies and the relaxation of currency controls that have weakened the national currency, the naira.
Tinubu’s administration has suspended import duties on basic foodstuffs, medicines and other essential items for six months to bring down prices and more than doubled the country’s minimum wage, but that has not appeased protesters, who police say include rioters who are vandalizing businesses.
“Police stations have been destroyed, there have been attempts to seize government houses, government infrastructure has been looted, several warehouses and shops have been looted and in several cases completely destroyed,” the Nigerian Inspector General of Police said in a statement.
Amnesty Nigeria, for its part, claims that its initial investigations show that Nigerian security forces “have deliberately used tactics designed to kill” during their operations against protesters.
“The illegal behaviour of Nigerian security agencies, which are using firearms as a tactical tool to manage the tasks of containing the protests, must end immediately,” the NGO added.
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