YENAGOA, Nigeria - A car exploded in the southern Nigerian oil city of Yenagoa late on Sunday close to a guesthouse owned by deputy state governor Peremobowei Ebebi, a government official said on Monday.Police and anti-bomb squad officers sealed off the area around the building, according to the official from the government of Bayelsa, one of the three main states in the oil-producing Niger Delta. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion and there was no claim of responsibility. There were no reports of casualties, the official told Reuters, asking not to be named.
Tensions have been high for months in Bayelsa state due to political rivalry between Governor Timipre Sylva and Ebebi, whose supporters would like to remove Sylva from office.
The blast comes a month and a half after two car bombs were detonated outside a government building in the neighbouring state of Delta, where talks were being held about implementing an amnesty programme for militants. Those attacks were claimed by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the region's main militant group responsible for years of sabotage and strikes against Nigeria's mainstay oil and gas industry.