NIGERIAN TRUCK "ACCIDENT" KILLS MORE THAN 100

BBC:

Up to 100 people have been killed after a runaway truck ploughed into a crowded market in Nigeria.

Officials said 55 people died, but a BBC reporter at the scene, in Kogi state, counted at least 100 corpses.

Kogi state police said the lorry hurtled down a hill at speed, smashing cars and motorcycles then crashing into the market, injuring up to 40 people.

Traffic accidents are common in Nigeria because vehicles and roads are badly maintained.

"I can only confirm that 55 people were killed. The driver of the truck lost control and ran into a group of people moving in a procession along the road," a senior police officer told AFP news agency.

Burned beyond recognition

Kogi state commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission, Yomi Asaniyan, said brake failure was the cause.

Declaring three days of mourning, Ibrahim Idris, the governor of Kogi state, expressed his sadness and offered to pay the medical bills of those injured.

Eyewitnesses told Nigeria's Sunday Trust newspaper that the market in Allo village in the Dekina area was filled to capacity when it was rammed by the lorry.

A number of vehicles caught fire, burning people beyond recognition. It is not yet clear whether the accident happened on Friday or Saturday.

Last week, more than 20 people burned to death when a bus carrying mourners to a funeral collided with a truck on a road in Oyo state, south-west Nigeria.

HMMM...

ACCIDENT!?

OR RELATED TO THIS: Nigeria in crisis as delta militants claim 'warning attack' on pipeline

Militants say President Umaru Yar'Adua's absence in Saudi Arabia is being used to delay oil wealth reforms

Claims by Nigerian militants that they staged an attack on an oil installation, breaching a five-month ceasefire, have deepened fears that the country is on the verge of a constitutional crisis.

Nigeria, which in 1999 ended a 40-year era of military dictatorship, is in the midst of a power vacuum in the absence of President Umaru Yar'Adua, who has been in hospital in Saudi Arabia for more than three weeks.

MORE HERE: Nigerian militants attack oil pipeline

Nigerian militants attacked an oil pipeline early Saturday morning, breaking a tenuous cease-fire with the government over the long absence of its ill president.

Militants armed with assault rifles, machine guns and rocket launchers attacked a major crude oil pipeline operated by Shell and Chevron in Nigeria's Rivers State, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in a statement.

Group spokesman Jomo Gbomo said the group would consider the unconditional cease-fire agreement it made with the government on Oct. 25 void for the next 30 days.

The attack comes after President Umaru Yar'Adua held formal peace talks with the group and many militants put down their arms as part of a government amnesty. While the militants have broken cease-fires in the past, the attack highlights the Nigerian government's struggles with Yar'Adua's weeks-long absence as he tries to overcome a reportedly serious heart condition.

THEY ARE LEFTIST TERRORISTS.