Suspected Boko Haram gunmen attacked a market in restive northeastern Nigeria, killing five and injuring many more, witnesses said on Monday.

More than 30 attackers armed with guns, explosives and knives stormed the market in Borno State, where a state of emergency is in place, they said.

Nigeria's military on Friday confirmed that it was to release 167 people who were detained as part of counter-insurgency operations against Boko Haram militants in three northeast states.

Defense spokesman Chris Olukolade said the suspects were to be freed after a directive from the presidency following their recommendation for release in December last year.

Authorities in Nigeria's central Plateau state said Thursday that 34 people were killed in a brutal village raid in the center of the country, in a revised deathtoll after the attack earlier this week.

State Information Commissioner Yiljap Abraham said that 34 people were killed, 24 injured and 600 people displaced in the attack by gunmen on Shonong village in Plateau state on Monday.

Nigeria's military on Thursday said they had killed as many as 38 Boko Haram fighters during counter-insurgency operations in the country's northeast.

Army spokesman Colonel Muhammad Dole said troops on patrol foiled a planned attack on local residents and a military camp in Damboa, Borno state, in the early hours, and inflicted "heavy casualties".

Fifteen people were killed in Nigeria's financial hub Lagos when a tanker loaded with fuel overturned and burst into flames, a rescue agency said on Wednesday.

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye told Agence France Presse initially that nine people had died in the accident, which happened just before midnight (2300 GMT) on Tuesday.

The father of a state governor who defected from Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's ruling party escaped unhurt after gunmen attacked a mosque in his village, police said on Wednesday.

Musa Saleh Kwankwaso, whose son is Kano state governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, was at the place of worship in Kwankwaso village when the attack happened at about 7:30 pm (1830 GMT) on Tuesday.

The Nigerian police on Tuesday revised up from five to 17 the death toll in a raid the previous day by gunmen on a village in central Plateau state.

Plateau State police chief Chris Olakpe told journalists that five of the victims were burnt beyond recognition while 20 houses were razed.

The banned Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram on Wednesday said it had released a French Roman Catholic priest on compassionate grounds but insisted that no ransom had been paid.

The militants, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, claimed responsibility for kidnapping Georges Vandenbeusch, who was seized from his parish in northern Cameroon on November 13.

A French Roman Catholic priest abducted by Islamic militants in Cameroon was released on Tuesday after a six-week ordeal.

Georges Vandenbeusch, 42, was kidnapped on November 13 by heavily armed men who burst into his parish at night in the far north of the central African country and reportedly took him to neighboring Nigeria.

President Goodluck Jonathan was on Monday urged to hold talks on the future of Nigeria, as the country prepared to mark the centenary of the unification of north and south.

The Movement for New Nigeria (MNN), a civil society group made up of a number of different ethnic groups, said a national dialogue was the only way of resolving contentious issues gripping the country.