An indefinite 24-hour curfew has been imposed on Lagos and other regions.

yewitnesses spoke of uniformed men opening fire in the wealthy Lekki suburb of Lagos on Tuesday evening.

Armed soldiers were seen barricading the protest site moments before the shooting, BBC Nigeria correspondent Nayeni Jones reports.

Social media footage streamed live from the scene shows protesters tending to the wounded.

An unnamed eyewitness told BBC News: “At exactly 6.45pm [local time] the soldiers pulled up… and they started firing directly at we, the 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.

“It was pandemonium and they kept on shooting and shooting at us. It lasted for about an hour and a half and the soldiers were actually taking up the dead bodies.”

He said the soldiers had built a barricade and ambulances could not reach the protest area.Four witnesses told Reuters news agency soldiers had opened fire on demonstrators. One of them, Alfred Ononugbo, 55, said: “They started firing ammunition toward the crowd. They were firing into the crowd. I saw the bullet hit one or two persons.”