Gunmen have raided a church service in a village in Nigeria's volatile northeast and killed 15 people, a rescue official says.

A massive explosion ripped through a warehouse full of fireworks in Nigeria's largest city on Wednesday, sparking a fire that threatened surrounding city blocks and sending a plume of thick smoke high into the sky.

Suspected pirates attacked and abducted four sailors on a supply vessel in 40 nautical miles (74 km) from the coastline, Bayelsa region in southern Nigeria, an International Maritime Bureau statement said on Monday.

Nigerian police in central north Kaduna region on Monday banned fireworks during the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Nigerian troops operating in northwest Kano State on Monday said a bomb exploded near a drinking parlor on Sunday.

More than 30 assailants stormed a house in northern Nigeria, killing two people and kidnapping a French engineer, in the latest abduction to hit the West African nation, officials said Thursday.

The gasoline pipeline burns unstopped near a village close to Nigeria's sprawling megacity of Lagos, shooting flames into the air as leaking fuel muddies the ground.

Police in northwest Nigeria say 27 people riding atop a truck carrying livestock have been killed when it tipped over and crashed.

A Nigerian actress cum government official identified as Nkiru Sylvanus was on Sunday afternoon kidnapped by unknown gunmen in the southeastern state of Imo and a ransom has been demanded by her abductors, according to security sources.

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) on Saturday said a helicopter is believed to have crashed in oil rich Bayelsa State.

Nigerian police in the northern state of Zamfara on Friday said unidentified gunmen riding on motorcycles shot dead 10 members of the local vigilante group in an attack.

A police officer and three civilians on Monday died in a deadly clash between security forces and Islamic Boko Haram sect in the Nigerian northeast city of Potiskum, in Yobe State, army authority said.

Two people were feared dead on Monday morning when an explosion rocked Plaza junction area of Kanti Kori located in northern Nigeria's Kano State, security sources said.

A top Boko Haram leader identified as Abdulkareem Ibrahim and two sub-commanders of the sect have been killed in a raid carried out by Nigerian troops in Maiduguri, capital of northeastern Borno State, authorities of the military Joint Task Fiorce (JTF) said on Monday.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has said he would sustain the progress so far made in combating HIV and AID in the country.

Nigeria's Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) in northern Zamfara State on Monday night said two different accidents involving three vehicles claimed the lives of 23 persons.

A senior leader of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was among the three militants killed Friday by Algerian forces in the southern province of Bejaia, local TSA news website reported Sunday.

Four gunmen were killed Saturday by security operatives in a crackdown on criminals in northern Nigeria, police said.

A policeman was killed on Sunday night while another injured by unknown gunmen who attacked a police station in northeast Nigeria's Bauchi State.

The oil firm Mobil Producing Nigeria has deployed hundreds of workers and equipment to tackle an oil spill in its operations in southern Nigeria's Akwa Ibom State.