Suicide bomber chants sai Buhari before detonating bomb.

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Another bomb blast rocked the troubled Borno State capital of Maiduguri   late on Tuesday morning , leaving many dead and others wounded.

Prior to the explosion at the popular Kasuwan Shanu (meat market), residents were rudely woken up at 12:45am on Monday by gunshots that boomed in parts of the city till 2pm.

No official reason was given by the military authorities for the gunshots which many of the residents feared were fired by advancing Boko Haram insurgents.

But when business and other activities were peaking in the city , a bomb went off in the meat market, sending cattle rustlers,   butchers, their customers and passersby scampering to safety.

Although the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the state Commissioner of Police, Aderemi Opadokun, as saying that five people died in the blast, Reuters reported 50.

Opadokun said the suspect, “who was shouting “Sai Buhari,’’ danced close to an abattoir in the market, before detonating the bomb strapped to his body when people had gathered around him.

‘‘Five people, including himself, died, while eight others sustained injuries,’’ he said, adding that   policemen were mobilised to the scene to evacuate the corpses and convey the injured to the hospital.

But Reuters quoted a witness as claiming that   “as many as 50 people were killed.’’

-Punch