L-R: Lagos Commissioner For Physical Planning, Mr Toyin Ayinde; Gov. Babatunde Fashola; Commissioner for Establishment and Training, Mrs Florence Oguntuase; Chairman, Agbodi-ketu Local Council Development Authority (LCDA), Mr Obafemi Durosinmi and Secretary of the Lcda, Mr Oladele Osinowo, during Gov. Fashola’s Inspection of Ajelogo Housing Estate in Lagos on Thursday (9/1/14). Photo: NAN

At least, 17 persons were killed when suspected suicide bomber detonated bomb at the popular GSM Market near the Post Office in Maiduguri, yesterday
Survivors told newsmen in Maiduguri that the incident occurred at about 2p.m. shortly after the Zuhur prayers.
Commissioner of Police in the state, Alhaji Lawan Tanko confirmed the blast.
“It is true that we had a blast at the GSM market after a suicide bomber driving in a firewood seller’s vehicle detonated his bomb around 1p.m.
“Security agents rushed to the scene and cordoned off the place to restore normalcy.
“We counted about 17 dead bodies as at 2.30 p.m. but the evacuation is ongoing. We also counted five injured persons that were carried to hospital.’’
He said that the casualties included a Traffic Warder who sustained injuries.
He said he had instructed his men to visit hospitals in the state capital to get comprehensive details of the casualties of the blast.
Tanko said that the police had also fortified security in all public places to prevent any incident in the state capital.
A Red Cross official, who helped in evacuating the victims, Malam Ibrahim Mubi, confirmed the development, saying he could not give the actual number of the casualties at the time.
Malam Fantami Ali, a trader at the GSM market said he counted about 30 corpses after the blast.
“We were busy conducting businesses at the market when we heard explosion on the road.
“We later realised that it was a suicide bomber using fire wood seller’s pick up van that detonated bomb in the middle of the road during a busy hour at the market’’, he said.
Fantami said about 50 persons were also injured in the incident. “We counted about 30 dead bodies after the incident.
“We also helped to evacuate about 50 persons who were injured at the scene’’, he said.
Another report indicated that although no one has claimed responsibility for the blast, the bomb, planted in a three-wheel rickshaw taxi, exploded outside the state television offices at around 1.30pm.
“My men counted 17 dead as at 2:00 pm and they are still counting. I have instructed my men to go to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital and the state specialist hospital to verify if there are others,” said Borno Police Commissioner,  Lawan Tanko.
“I saw two boys on the ground and their bodies cut into pieces, two other cars immediately caught fire and I ran away because there was too much blood,” city resident, Aisha Hassan said.
Soldiers fired shots into the air to disperse crowds before cordoning off the roads around the bomb site, witnesses said.
Dozens of youths, some armed with machetes, protested on the street after the attack, accusing politicians of failing to curb violence in Maiduguri.
President Goodluck Jonathan stepped up a military campaign against the group in May last year. But it has not stemmed the violence, which killed thousands last year, security experts say.
The radical Islamist sect says it is fighting to create an Islamic state in a country of nearly 170 million split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.
Maiduguri is the capital of Borno State where Boko Haram first launched its uprising in 2009, beginning with drive-by shootings of policeman but quickly developing the scale and sophistication of its attacks.
Boko Haram and splinter Islamist groups are viewed as the biggest security threat in Nigeria, Africa’s second largest economy.
The United States and its allies are increasingly concerned that Islamist groups in Nigeria will strengthen ties with al Qaeda’s north African wing and its largely domestic insurgency could become more anti-Western.
A Boko Haram suicide attack on the United Nations building in 2011 in the capital, Abuja, killed at least 25 people.