JOS, Dec 25 — An explosion killed at least five people and wounded dozens more in a village near the central Nigerian city of Jos yesterday, police said.

Abdulrahman Akano, Plateau state police commissioner, said five people were dead, while more were in a critical condition, after a bomb exploded in Gada Biu village yesterday evening.

The state information office said 20 people were killed in the explosions but police could not confirm this.

Hundreds of people died in religious and ethnic clashes at the start of the year in the “Middle Belt,” the central region of Africa’s most populous nation where the mostly-Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

There have been localised outbreaks of violence since then.

The tension is rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands and for economic and political power with migrants and settlers from the north.

President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, faces a challenge from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the ruling party nomination and some analysts fear unrest in the Middle Belt may be exploited by politicians during campaigning. — Reuters