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An explosion has struck a public health college in Nigeria’s second city of Kano, in the north, killing at least eight people, police say.
At least 20 others were wounded in the blast at the Kano School of Hygiene.
The city has been targeted in the past by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, which aims to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.
Three states to the east of Kano are under a government-imposed emergency after years of militant attacks.
A member of a gang in Niger says Boko Haram Islamist militants from Nigeria regularly come across the border, looking for recruits.
“We can’t contact them, they come to us,” says the young man, who looks like he is barely out of his teens.
Five members of this gang in Diffa, near the border, have joined the group; two have since been killed on operations, he says.
In total there are about a dozen gang members in a tiny, dark room, built with local mud-bricks.
There are a couple of homemade stools and weights for them to exercise just outside the door.
When I ask if they agree with Boko Haram’s reason for fighting, they answer in unison: “No. We only do it for the money.”
They had agreed to meet us earlier on a street corner in Diffa.
Nigeria has “rebased” its gross domestic product (GDP) data, which has pushed it above South Africa as the continent’s biggest economy.
Nigerian GDP now includes previously uncounted industries like telecoms, information technology, music, online sales, airlines, and film production.
GDP for 2013 totalled 80.3 trillion naira (£307.6bn: $509.9bn), the Nigerian statistics office said.
That compares with South Africa’s GDP of $370.3bn at the end of 2013.
However, some economists point out that Nigeria’s economic output is underperforming because at 170 million people, its population is three times larger than South Africa’s.
Seventy-nine people are said to have been killed in northern Nigeria, in an attack blamed by police on gunmen from the Fulani community.
The attack targeted a meeting of community leaders and vigilante groups in Galadima village, Zamfara state, a police spokesman told AFP news agency.
The meeting was discussing action against robbers and cattle rustlers.
Fulani herdsmen and farmers from other ethnic groups have frequently clashed in Nigeria over land and faith.
At least 100 villagers were killed in central Kaduna state last month in an attack that was also linked to a dispute between local farmers and the semi-nomadic Fulani herdsmen.