Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has called for an end to street protests in the country as authorities in the commercial capital Lagos struggled to enforce a curfew imposed to contain anger over a crackdown on anti-police protesters.
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Gunshots rang out and smoke rose from at least two fires in the affluent Ikoyi neighbourhood on Thursday, witnesses said on Thursday. A fire broke out in the district's prison, the state government said. Video footage showed a blaze in a shopping mall in another part of Lagos.
The unrest has become a political crisis for Buhari, a former military leader who came to power at the ballot box in 2015 and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Some protesters have said they feared a return to the dark days of military rule.
Violence in Lagos, Africa's biggest city and the commercial hub of the continent's largest economy, has escalated since Wednesday. Groups of young men and armed police clashed in some neighbourhoods following a shooting on Tuesday night in Lekki district.
Rights group Amnesty International said soldiers and police killed at least 12 protesters in Lekki and Alausa, another Lagos district. On Thursday the human rights group called for an "immediate and thorough investigation of allegations of unlawful killing and use of excessive force against protesters in Lagos" on Tuesday evening.
The army denies soldiers were at the site of the shootings, where people had gathered in defiance of the curfew.
Buhari urged youths to "discontinue the street protests and constructively engage government in finding solutions" in a televised address that marked his first public statement since the shootings.
But he made no direct reference to the shootings, prompting criticism on social media.
Reflecting widespread surprise at the omission, ex-lawmaker Shehu Sani, a former member of Buhari's party, tweeted: "You ask for speech, you got the speech and now you are speechless."
The protests against police brutality, which involved nationwide marches for nearly two weeks until the Tuesday shootings, were largely peaceful.
The shooting of protesters has prompted a wave of criticism of Nigerian authorities and the behaviour of its security forces.
Buhari, in his address, encouraged the international community to "know all facts available" before rushing to judgment.
Much of the unrest in Lagos in recent days has been concentrated in the mainland areas of the lagoon city, where young men have set up makeshift barricades to block roads.
Several states in southern Nigeria have imposed curfews after two weeks of confrontations across the country between security services - the West African nation's biggest wave of unrest since the end of military rule in 1999.
Australian Associated Press
