Muhammadu Buhari, who took office in May 2015, handed over power to Vice President Osinbajo to allay concerns of a void at the helm of Africa’s biggest economy.
The president’s absence sparked numerous protests, including demands that he should resign, as well as calls for more transparency about his condition.
There has been speculation about Muhammadu Buhari’s health since June 2016, when he first went to London for treatment of what his aides said was a persistent ear infection.
Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman said he will address Nigerians on August 21.
A huge explosion rocked an area near Banex Plaza shopping centre in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Wednesday, two witnesses said.
The blast hit Abuja’s Wuse 2 district, reports said.
It is not yet clear what was behind the explosion. Emergency services are attending the scene.
Boko Haram has staged previous attacks in Abuja, but most of its targets have been in the north-east of the country
Nigeria, including the capital, has experienced several bomb attacks in recent months. Many places have been targeted by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram.
Manzo Ezekiel, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, told AFP news agency: “You can see smoke billowing from the sky. It’s a very crowded place.”
One witness said the blast shattered shop windows, and that people could be seen running out of the shopping centre with blood on their clothes.
Boko Haram has staged previous attacks in Abuja, but most of its targets have been in the north-east of the country.
In April, more than 70 people were killed in a bomb blast at a bus stop on the outskirts of the capital in an attack claimed by Boko Haram.
In May, a car bomb near a bus station in the suburbs killed at least 19 people and injured 60 others.
The group has hit Abuja several times before, including an attack on the UN national headquarters in 2011.
Nigerian authorities have banned public protests in the capital Abuja for the release of more than 200 schoolgirls seized by Islamist militants in April.
Abuja police commissioner Joseph Mbu said the rallies were “now posing a serious security threat”.
Nigeria has seen almost daily rallies calling for the government to take firmer action to rescue the girls.
Boko Haram militants snatched the girls from the remote Chibok village near the Cameroon border on April 14.
Nigerian authorities have banned public protests in the capital Abuja for the release of more than 200 schoolgirls seized by Islamist militants (photo AP)
In a statement, Joseph Mbu said that public protests had “degenerated” and were now a security threat.
He was also quoted by the state-run Agency of Nigeria as saying that “dangerous elements” could join the demonstrations.
Nigeria’s government has been facing growing pressure both at home and abroad to do more to tackle the group and bring about the girls’ release.
A deal for the release of some of the abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria was close to being secured when the Nigerian government called it off late last month.
Some of the girls were set to be freed in exchange for imprisoned Islamist militants.
Thousands of people have died since Boko Haram began a violent campaign against the Nigerian government in 2009 and in the subsequent security crackdown.
The girls, who were mainly Christian, were taken from their school in Chibok, in north-eastern Borno state and are thought to be held in a remote forested area of the state, close to the border with Chad and Cameroon.
The Nigerian government has decided to shut schools and government offices across the capital Abuja, while a World Economic Forum conference takes place next week.
A big security operation is being promised to protect more than 1,000 delegates at the three-day meeting, after two deadly bomb attacks in Abuja.
An explosion late on Thursday killed 19 people, two weeks after a nearby bombing left 75 dead.
Islamist militant group Boko Haram is being blamed for the violence.
The same group is believed to be behind the kidnapping of more than 200 teenage girls from their school in Borno state in north-eastern Nigeria more than a fortnight ago.
The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2014 will take place in Abuja from May 7 to May 9
The group, whose name means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language, has staged a wave of attacks in northern Nigeria in recent years, with an estimated 1,500 killed in the violence and subsequent security crackdown this year alone.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s government says 5,000 police and soldiers will be deployed for the World Economic Forum on Africa, which begins on Wednesday.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and the presidents of Rwanda, Senegal and Kenya will be among international as well as African figures at the forum.
While the official reason for closing all schools and government offices in Abuja is to ensure traffic flows smoothly, tightening security is also a likely reason.
Fewer vehicles on the roads should enable stricter searches and cut the number of potential targets for further bomb attacks, he adds.
“The government has taken the strongest measures to ensure a safe forum. We ask participants not to let terror win,” Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement.
In a separate development, the US embassy has warned its citizens of a planned “unspecified attack” on one of two Sheraton hotels in Lagos.
The finance minister said the security measures were aimed at calming nerves but told Nigerian media the focus on returning the abducted girls to their families was “much more important”.
Boko Haram has not made any response to the accusation that its fighters abducted the girls from the school in Chibok town in the middle of the night on April 14.
Since the kidnapping, parents have criticized the government’s search and rescue efforts.
The police chief in Borno state has put the number of missing girls at 223 and has appealed to parents to come forward with photographs of their daughters to confirm who has been seized. According to the police commissioner, 53 of the girls are believed to have escaped.
It is thought that the militants initially took the girls to the Sambisa forest; there have been subsequent reports they have been taken over the borders into Chad and Cameroon and possibly forced to “marry” the insurgents.
A stampede among jobseekers taking a recruitment test in the national stadium in Nigeria’s capital Abuja has left at least seven people dead and many others injured.
A journalist for AFP news agency said he had counted seven corpses.
Nigeria stampede among jobseekers taking a recruitment test in the national stadium in Abuja
The stampede came during a recruitment exercise by the immigration department. Tens of thousands had turned up to take the test, according to reports.
There is a high level of unemployment in Nigeria especially among young people. In 2011, it stood at 23.9%.
Survivor Rosemary Ogida told AFP that she could remember being picked up by three men.
“I cannot even imagine the number of people that stamped on me,” she said.
At least six people have been killed in two explosions at the offices of major Nigerian daily ThisDay, according to witnesses.
Three people were killed in a blast in Abuja, with another three killed at the paper’s offices in the northern city of Kaduna.
Witnesses say at least one was a suicide bombing, but officials say it is too early to say.
No-one has said it carried out the blasts although the Islamist group Boko Haram has staged similar attacks.
Both blasts are reported to have occurred at the offices of the ThisDay newspaper, a Nigerian leading daily.
At least six people have been killed in two explosions at the offices of major Nigerian daily ThisDay
Details remain sketchy but several witnesses, including the chairman of ThisDay‘s editorial board, said the blasts were the result of a suicide attack.
“The suicide bomber came in a jeep,” Olusegun Adeniyi told reporters at the scene in Abuja.
“[Security guards] opened the gate for them… The guy drove in through the gate and rammed into the building and exploded,” Olusegun Adeniyi said.
However, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency earlier said the Abuja blast appeared to be caused by a bomb planted inside the building.
The Kaduna explosion happened outside a complex housing a number of newspapers, including ThisDay.
A suspect has been arrested and is thought to be a member of the Boko Haram group, news agency AFP reports police as saying.
Footage filmed by the Nigerian paper the Daily Trust, showed a scene of confusion in Abuja as people sifted through the rubble as a number of small fires burned.
Police and paramilitary forces have cordoned off both offices, while emergency workers evacuated the injured and removed the bodies of those who died, witnesses say.
“The ceiling of our building collapsed on to our computers because of the force of the blast,” said an Abuja office worker in the building next door to ThisDay.
Boko Haram – whose name means “Western education is forbidden” – wants to establish Islamic law in Nigeria and has launched a series of deadly attacks across the country, including the capital, in the past 19 months.
Last month the group warned journalists not to misrepresent their views.
A series of bomb attacks in Nigeria, including two during Christmas Mass services at Catholic churches, killed 40 people and left many others injured.
The Islamist group Boko Haram said it carried out the attacks, including one on St. Theresa’s Church in Madalla, near the capital Abuja, that killed 35.
A second explosion shortly after hit a church in the central city of Jos. A policeman died during gunfire.
Three attacks in northern Yobe state left four people dead.
Two hit the town of Damaturu, and a third struck Gadaka. Yobe state has been the epicentre of violence between security forces and Boko Haram militants.
The Islamist group Boko Haram said it carried out the bomb attacks in Nigeria, including one on St. Theresa's Church in Madalla, near the capital Abuja, that killed 35
President Goodluck Jonathan, who is a Christian, said the attacks were an “unwarranted affront on our collective safety and freedom”.
The White House condemned what it described as “senseless violence” and pledged to assist Nigeria in bringing those responsible to justice.
Boko Haram – whose name means “Western education is forbidden” – often targets security forces and state institutions.
The group carried out an August 2011 suicide attack on the UN headquarters in Abuja, in which more than 20 people were killed.
Nearly 70 people have died this week in fighting between Nigerian forces and Boko Haram gunmen in the country’s north-east.
National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Yushau Shuaibu told the BBC that the latest Abuja explosion had happened in the street outside the church.
He said the church – which can hold up to 1,000 people – had been badly affected by the blast.
Witnesses said windows of nearby houses had been shattered by the explosion.
Officials at the local hospital said the condition of many of the injured was serious, and they were seeking help from bigger medical facilities.
Police had trouble controlling the anger of local people.
Reuters reports that thousands of youths have erected roadblocks on the road from the capital to the largely Muslim north, and are being tackled by security forces firing tear gas.
One of the Damaturu explosions was a suicide car bomb attack on a convoy of the State Security Service.
In Jos, a blast close to the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church was followed by gunfire that left one officer dead, government spokesman Pam Ayuba told Associated Press.
Two explosive devices found in a nearby building were disarmed as military were deployed to the site.
The attack in Jos, in Plateau state, could have even more serious consequences than the attack in Abuja.
The state lies in Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt, between the mainly Muslim north and Christian south.
More than 1,000 have been killed in religious and ethnic violence in Jos over the past two years and our correspondent says there will be fears that the latest attack could spark wider conflict.
A string of bomb blasts in Jos on Christmas Eve 2010 were claimed by Boko Haram.
President Goodluck Jonathan said after the latest attacks: “I want to reassure all Nigerians that the government will not relent in its determination to bring to justice all the perpetrators.”
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