The suspect, a 38-year-old resident of the area, confessed that he attacked the mosque in Kano's remote Gadan village “purely in hostility following prolonged (a) family disagreement,” police spokesman Abdullahi Haruna said in a statement.
The incident caused panic in Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest state, where periodic religion-related unrest has occurred over the years, sometimes resulting in violence.
Haruna said preliminary forensic analysis suggested a gasoline explosion, but a full investigation was still going.
The police have also cordoned off the scene while the injured were rushed to a hospital in the state capital.
The Daily Trust newspaper reported that the worshippers were locked inside the mosque, making it difficult to escape the explosion. It said the suspect had attacked people in the area in the past over the same family dispute.
“The disagreement (was) over sharing of inheritance of which those that he alleged to have cheated on him were in the mosque at that moment and he did that for his voice to be heard,” the police statement said.