Nigeria's security services were on high alert on Saturday after a warning from the police chief that al Qaeda could be planning a bombing campaign in Africa's most populous country. "The al Qaeda network has planned to send time bombs to Nigeria," Inspector General Mike Okiro told senior officers on Friday at a meeting in the south of the west African nation, according to several newspapers.
Okiro gave no more details of the threat or of possible targets but ordered security checks to be upgraded across the west African country, particularly at seaports, airports and land border points. Nigeria has never suffered an al Qaeda attack but since a large proportion of its population is Muslim, and since it is home to various armed groups, US officials see it as being at risk of such activity.
In February 2003, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called on Muslims to rise up in a number of states including Nigeria. In December 2007, he suggested that true Muslim believers should overthrow their governments, and made a reference to support for Nigerian "brothers". Nigeria, the world's eighth-largest oil producer, has struggled in recent years to quell rebel attacks by a number of groups in the Niger Delta, the main oil producing region in the south of the country.
Nigeria's territorial waters have overtaken those of Indonesia to become the number-one hotspot in the world for piracy, the International Maritime Bureau said last month. With an overall population estimated at 140 million, Nigeria is home to at least 50 million Muslims and 12 of its 36 states - all in the north - have followed Islamic sharia law since 2000.
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