Reuters/Yaounde

The wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister was kidnapped and at least three people were killed in an attack by Boko Haram militants in the northern town of Kolofata yesterday, Cameroon officials said.
  A local religious leader, or lamido, named Seini Boukar Lamine, who is also the town’s mayor, was kidnapped as well, in a separate attack on his home.
  There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
  Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist militant group, has stepped up cross-border attacks into Cameroon in recent weeks as Cameroon has deployed troops to the region, joining international efforts to combat the militants.
  “I can confirm that the home of vice prime minister Amadou Ali in Kolofata came under a savage attack from Boko Haram militants,” Issa Tchiroma told Reuters by telephone.
  “They unfortunately took away his wife. They also attacked the lamido’s residence and he was also kidnapped,” he said, and at least three people were killed in the attack.
  A Cameroon military commander in the region told Reuters that the vice prime minister, who was at home to celebrate the Muslim feast of Ramadan with his family, was taken to a neighbouring town by security officials.
  “The situation is very critical here now, and as I am talking to you the Boko Haram elements are still in Kolofata town in a clash with our soldiers,” said colonel Felix Nji Formekong, the second commander of Cameroon’s third inter-army military region, based in the regional headquarters Maroua.
  The Sunday attack is the third Boko Haram attack into Cameroon since Friday. At least four soldiers were killed in the previous attacks. Meanwhile, some 22 suspected Boko Haram militants, who have been held in Maroua since March, were on Friday sentenced to prison sentences ranging from 10 to 20 years. It was unclear whether the events are related.
  Boko Haram have killed hundreds of people this year, mostly in northeastern Nigeria, although they have bombed places across the country.
  At least five people were killed and eight were injured Sunday in a bomb attack on a Catholic church in a mainly Christian area of Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s north, police said.
  The attack came shortly after the end of mass, police spokesman Frank Mba told AFP: “We suspect an IED (improvised explosive device) that was thrown from across the road” at the Saint Charles Catholic church in Kano’s Sabon Gari district, which has suffered previous attacks by the Islamist group Boko Haram.
  Idowu Kazim, a mechanic in the area, said: “We heard the explosion at around 2:15 pm (1315 GMT) and moments later a police anti-bomb truck sped past in the direction of the scene.”
  Another resident who lives near the church told AFP on condition of anonymity the blast “made me dash out to my balcony”.
  On June 23, a bomb blast at a public health college in the city killed at least eight, while on May 19, a suicide car bomb attack in Sabon Gari killed at least four people, including a young girl.
  At least four strong explosions rocked the same area on July 29 last year, killing 12.
 A woman suicide bomber blew herself up outside a university in Kano yesterday after police prevented her from carrying out an attack, injuring five officers, Mba said.
 “A female suicide bomber was isolated as she was walking towards the gate of the university,” Mba said, adding that she had hidden the bomb under her “long black hijab”.
 “Police on duty isolated her” because she was behaving strangely, Mba said.  
 They were about to ask a female colleague to frisk the woman when she detonated the bomb, killing herself and injuring the five police officers, he said.
 Police also said they had made safe a remote-controlled car bomb near a mosque and the home of a prominent Kano sheikh on Saturday.
 “The police were alerted by some vigilant residents last night,” said Kano police spokesman Musa Magaji Majia. “Our bomb disposal personnel succeeded in defusing the IED.”
 Kano has seen two attacks in recent months.
 On June 23, a bomb blast at a public health college in the city killed at least eight, while on May 19, a suicide car bomb attack in Sabon Gari killed at least four people, including a young girl.
  Nigeria’s biggest northern city of Kano has cancelled Eid festivities marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan next week after the bombings, an official said.
  “Given the critical situation we are in, the royal highness (of Kano state, Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi) has suspended all festivities associated with the eminence including the Durbar and other traditional events that are held during the Eid festival,” an aide to the emir, Aminu Ado Bayero, told AFP.