A number of people have reportedly been shot dead or wounded at a protest against police brutality in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos.
Witnesses and the rights group Amnesty International said several people were killed and wounded when soldiers opened fire.
The state governor said about 25 people had been wounded but only one person had died.
An indefinite 24-hour curfew has been imposed on Lagos and other regions.
Protests over a now-disbanded police unit – the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) – have been taking place for two weeks, with demonstrators using the social media hashtag #EndSARS to rally crowds.
As tensions continued to rise on Wednesday, police in different districts of Lagos fired shots in the air to disperse people defying the curfew, the BBC’s Nduka Orjinmo reports from the capital, Abuja.
Protesters who briefly gathered again at the Lekki toll gate – where Tuesday’s shootings took place – were forced out by police, he adds.
However, plumes of smoke could be seen above Lagos on Wednesday.
A reporter for AFP news agency said several buildings were in flames around the Lekki area. A bus station was reported to be on fire in another district while a major TV station – linked to one of the governing party’s top politicians – was reportedly set alight by people throwing petrol bombs.
The headquarters of the Nigerian Ports Authority was also set on fire, local media said.
Witnesses spoke of uniformed men opening fire in the wealthy Lekki suburb on Tuesday evening.
Soldiers were seen barricading the protest site moments before the shooting, BBC Nigeria correspondent Mayeni Jones reports.
Social media footage streamed live from the scene shows protesters tending to the wounded.
An unnamed witness told BBC News that shortly before 19:00 local time soldiers “pulled up… and they started firing directly” at peaceful protesters.
“They were firing and they were advancing straight at us. It was chaos. Somebody got hit straight beside me and he died on the spot,” he said.
Four witnesses told Reuters news agency that soldiers had opened fire on demonstrators. One of them, Alfred Ononugbo, 55, said: “They were firing into the crowd. I saw the bullet hit one or two persons.”
The Premium Times newspaper quoted witnesses as saying about 12 people had been killed. -BBC
