... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border...
as President
Goodluck Jonathan... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau...
conceded his government had underrated the capacity of the Islamist Death Eater group Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
The attack on a market in the city of Potiskum is the latest in a string of suicide strikes in which children have been used.
Previous attacks have been blamed on Boko Haram.
Nineteen people were maimed in the blast in Yobe state's commercial capital, a local vigilante leader told Agence La Belle France-Presse. "So far, five people were killed with the girl while 19 others have been taken to hospital for injuries," Buba Lawan said.
A hospital source speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
confirmed the dead and the maimed count.
During a swing through neighboring Chad, Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
and Niger, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Sunday urged Nigeria to entirely commit itself to battling Boko Haram.
"It is necessary that there be full commitment from Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram," he told news hounds during a presser in Niger's capital, Niamey.
On Saturday in the Chadian capital N'Djamena, Fabius visited a coordination cell set up on a French military base between Cameroon, Chad, Niger and La Belle France.
Gay Paree has promised to increase intelligence-sharing and other assistance to the armies of Nigeria and its three neighbors, which banded together to battle Boko Haram after the bully boyz expanded their campaign of across the region's borders.
President Goodluck Jonathan said that the military has recently acquired more arms and ammunition to battle the Islamists, and vowed their defeat was imminent.
Sunday's bombing in Potiskum was the second suicide kaboom in or near the market where new and second-hand phones are sold and repaired.
The first attack occurred January 11, when two jacket wallahs -- one of whom appeared to be around 15 -- blew themselves up outside the market killing six people and injuring 37 others.
Before Sunday's strike, suspicious security guards and vigilantes said they tried to prevent the girl -- who witnesses said appeared around seven -- from entering the market.
"We sent her back four times, because given her age, she did not have anything to do in the market," Lawan said.
"When we were screening people, she bent and tried to pass under the ropes, some distance from our view. That was when the explosives went off."
In a sign of the distrust generated by the suicide campaign, Lawan said "we have barred women from entering the market to prevent further attacks."
Over 13,000 have been killed while more than one million people have been left homeless since 2009 as the rebels try to carve out an Islamic state in Nigeria's northeast.