Nigeria pledges huge security for WEF event

Nigeria will mount a massive security operation to protect a World Economic Forum on Africa planned in Abuja next month, following the bomb attack by suspected Islamist militants on the capital's outskirts on Monday, the event's Nigerian hosts said. "Our security planning for the World Economic Forum on Africa (scheduled for May 7-9) is already well under way and will be the largest security operation ever mounted in this country for an international summit," Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement. Monday's rush hour bomb blast at a bus station at Nyanya, which killed 71 people and injured more than 100 others, was the deadliest ever attack on the capital of Africa's No. 1 oil producer and what is now the continent's largest economy. With President Goodluck Jonathan pointing the finger of suspicion at Islamist group Boko Haram which is waging an anti-government insurgency in the northeast, the bombing has raised questions about the government's ability to protect the capital, according to Reuters.