Suicide bombers killed at least 11 people in northeast Nigeria on Thursday night, bringing the death toll from attacks in Borno state since Tuesday to more than 150.
In the deadliest week since the new government took office, a suicide bomber killed herself and seven others when she detonated explosives in the village of Malari, Borno Police Commissioner Aderemi Opadokun said in a text message. Another suicide attack on the Allau Dam road killed three people including the bomber, he said.
The Borno assaults are the worst series of attacks since President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in on May 29, promising to end the insurgency by Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed more than 15,000 people in its six-year rebellion.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, visiting a camp in northeastern city of Yola for people made homeless by the violence, said the government was determined to end the killing.
“You have to be patient,” he said on Thursday, according to a statement from his office. “As you know, the government has very little money. We are running after all the money everywhere, so that we use it to serve you.”
Also in Borno, 11 former rebels who had quit Boko Haram were killed by the group in Miringa town early on Friday to discourage further defections, Hassan Ibrahim, a member of a pro-government vigilante group, said by phone from Maiduguri, the state capital.
‘Little News’
Thursday’s suicide attacks came after Boko Haram fighters shot dead 145 people in two villages in Borno on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to residents.
Buhari, who swept incumbent Goodluck Jonathan from office pledging to bring change to Africa’s most populous country, has been criticized by some Nigerians for his failure to appoint any cabinet ministers, or to articulate clear policies or legislative goals.
In June, he visited Chad and Niger for talks on the regional response to Boko Haram, “but there has been little news since then,” Francois Conradie, an analyst at NKC African Economics in Paarl, South Africa, said in e-mailed comments on Friday.
“The Chadians, who scored some major successes against Boko Haram on Nigerian territory in the first half of the year, have not operated across the border for weeks,” Conradie said. “The longer Mr. Buhari hesitates, the bigger all his problems become.”