The Police in Borno State have confirmed that 54 people were killed and over 95 injured in the multiple explosions that hit Maiduguri, the state capital on Sunday night.
Maiduguri has been free of attacks for about a month.
Maiduguri had experienced relative peace since late July, when a similar bomb attack killed five people.
A hospital source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least eight dead bodies had been recovered from the area, with many more feared dead, and around 50 injured people had been taken to hospital for treatment.
Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman, a military spokesman, said a suicide bomber on Sunday evening had blown himself up at the mosque, located in Maiduguri’s Ajilari district.
Police Public Relations Officer Victor Isuku said the attacks bore the hallmark of suspected Boko Haram insurgents.
Nigeria’s authorities have frequently downplayed the death toll from attacks in the insurgency, which has claimed at least 17,000 lives and forced more than two million from their homes since 2009.
The attack also followed a warning from Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerian President that conventional Boko Haram explosion were decreasing but that homemade bomb outrages and suicide could continue.
Boko Haram has recently resorted to hit-and-run tactics after the Nigerian military recaptured territory once held by the militants.
“This would enable the security take appropriate measures against them.The Department of State Services is also on the trail of the perpetrators of this heinous and dastardly act”.
It is also the headquarters of one sector of the multinational force fighting Boko Haram as well as housing a Cameroon motorised infantry base. “They are actually the ones whom we have driven away”. “They are now combing all known terrorist enclaves within the Bama, Banki and Pulka areas”.
Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the audio message. We counted twenty-seven at the mosque, eighteen at the cinema house, eleven at the market, and nine at the business center respectively, ” Bukar said.