No fewer than 13 people were feared dead yesterday when a fuel tanker rammed into a commercial bus at Odo Oba in Ogbomosho, Oyo State.

Although details of the crash are still hazy, the tanker and bus reportedly caught fire immediately. It was not clear where they were heading to when the crash occurred.

The National Emergency Management Agency confirmed the crash, saying three persons escaped. It did not, however, state whether they were in the tanker or the bus.

Road accidents involving tankers have become rampant in recent months, raising concern about the safety of road users.

In another development, suspected armed robbers raided three villages in Zamfara State, killing at least seven people and wounding seven more.

Zamfara State Information Commissioner, Ibrahim Birnin Magaji said yesterday that the attacks focused on the villages of Akuzo, Makera and Usu in the rural region.

Magaji said the gunmen attacked the villages Saturday morning as people left the mosque for morning prayers.

The motive for the attack late on Saturday on the villages of Makera and Usu was not known, police said. It was also unclear whether militant Islamist sect Boko Haram or a criminal gang were behind it.

“There was an attack in these villages in Zamfara and people were killed. I think the number is around 10,” Zamfara police spokesman Hassan Usman Talba said by telephone from the scene. He said the prime suspects were gangs of Fulani herdsman but that police were still investigating.

The Fulani’s semi-nomadic, cattle-herding way of life has led to decades of conflict with farming communities across central and northern Nigeria that often erupts into violence.

The focus of Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency has been northeastern Borno state and surrounding areas, but a military crackdown this year has pushed it into several states further south and west, including Zamfara.

Analysts say the insurgency has also brought a breakdown of law and order across the north, creating opportunities for armed gangs and ethnic militias with scores to settle.

In addition to this, activities of Islamist insurgents in nearby Mali, where Islamic militias control parts of the country, and in different other parts of the Sahel region, where returnee fighters from the Maghreb, are spreading social and political instability within the region and into nearby countries.

Islamist militancy and associated insecurity are the biggest threats to stability in Africa, and Nigeria in particular.

Boko Haram, a dreaded group that claims link with al-Qaeda which is loosely based on the Afghan Taliban, killed hundreds last year in a campaign to impose sharia, or Islamic law in Nigeria. Nigeria’s more than 160 million people are split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.