Secret police guard service at Kano mosque over fears Boko Haram could strike again after killing more than 150 on Friday
The emir of Kano and the state's top politician have offered prayers for the more than 150 people killed in a co-ordinated attack by a radical Islamist sect, though fear kept many Nigerians from coming to the service.
Emir Ado Bayero, 81, whispered prayers into a microphone at the mosque in Kano, a city of more than 9 million in Nigeria's Muslim north. The mosque sat half empty for the special service on Monday. Secret police officers in ill-fitting suits stood guard with assault rifles out of fear that the sect known as Boko Haram could strike again.
"I call on people from all groups to pray for this place," said Bayero, who was joined by the Kano state governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso. Residents of the city tried to restore a semblance of normality, but nerves were on edge.
The Nigerian Red Cross estimates that more than 150 people died in Friday's attack in Kano, which saw at least two Boko Haram suicide bombers detonate explosive-laden cars. The attack hit police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of Nigeria's secret police, leaving corpses lying in the streets across the city, many wearing police or other security agency uniforms.
The scale of the attack left Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, speechless as he toured what remained of a regional police headquarters on Sunday.
A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists on Friday. He said the attack came because the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.
The co-ordinated attack in Kano represents Boko Haram's deadliest assault since it began a campaign of terror last year. The group has killed 226 people so far in 2012, more than half of the 510 people the sect killed in all of 2011, according to an Associated Press count.
Nigeria's weak central government has been unable to stop the attacks. Boko Haram, which means "western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north, wants to implement strict sharia law and avenge the deaths of Muslims in communal violence across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people split largely into a Christian south and Muslim north.
While the sect has begun targeting Christians living in the north, the majority of those killed on Friday appeared to be Muslim, officials have said.
The emir left the mosque on Monday morning leaning on a cane, moving slowly. Sunglasses hid his eyes. The emirs of Nigeria, which date back to the early 1800s, still remain spiritual leaders for Muslims in Nigeria's north. British colonialists used them to rule the north by proxy until independence in 1960. Many believe Nigeria's corrupt politicians now do the same.
The waning influence of traditional rulers and the rise of Boko Haram have led to fears of more violence in Nigeria's north. Aminu Garba, 38, who stood outside the mosque after the prayer service, said his wife suffered a miscarriage during Friday's attack.
"We are not safe at all. We are not safe," Garba said. He described hearing a tyre burst on Sunday, causing people nearby to drop whatever they were carrying and run away.