At least 121 people in Nigeria’s second-largest city of Kano, with bodies littering the streets on Saturday after overnight coordinated bomb attacks and gun battles

At least 121 people in Nigeria's second-largest city of Kano, with bodies littering the streets on Saturday after overnight coordinated bomb attacks and gun battles.

A 24-hour curfew was also imposed on the city of Kano, with eight police and immigration offices or residences targeted.

The main newspaper in Nigeria's north said that a purported spokesman for religious group Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for the violence, saying it was in response to authorities' refusal to release their members from custody. 

Some 20 huge blasts could be heard in the city as a suicide bomber attacked a regional police office and a car bomb rocked the outside of state police headquarters after the attacker fled and was shot dead, police sources said.
  
A number of other police posts were targeted, including a secret police building, as well as immigration offices.
 
Gunshots rang out in several areas, and a local television journalist was among those shot dead as he covered the violence. At least 11 police officers were believed to be among the dead.
  
At state police headquarters, a would-be suicide bomber sought to join the convoy of the police commissioner, the police source said, but jumped out of the car and sought to escape when officers opened fire. He was shot dead, the source said.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer, is reportedly divided between a mainly Muslim north and Christian south.