Car bombs kill 7 as Nigeria marks independence

TWO car bombs blew up yesterday as Nigeria celebrated its 50th independence anniversary, killing at least seven people in an unprecedented attack on the capital, Abuja, by militants from the country’s oil region.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the main militant group in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, had threatened to attack the festivities and warned people to stay away.

“For 50 years, the people of the Niger Delta have had their land and resources stolen from them,” the group said in a statement. While Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is oil-rich, most people live on less than $1 a day. The delta is very impoverished and polluted from spills.

A third and smaller explosion hit a venue at Eagle Square where President Goodluck Jonathan stood with other dignitaries, about a 10-minute walk from where the car bombs detonated.

A security agent was apparently injured in that blast, though the militant group later denied placing any explosives in the venue.

Yesterday’s attacks were the militants’ boldest yet, striking in Nigeria’s capital hundreds of kilometres from the delta.

The car bombings seemed designed to lure first-responders and then kill them with a second blast. Five minutes after the first vehicle exploded, the second went off, killing at least seven people, a police officer said.