Nigeria's chief of police has ordered the immediate mobilisation of all police resources to put an end to days of street violence and looting. Mohammed Adamu said criminals have hijacked anti-police brutality protests and taken over public spaces.

He said this was no longer acceptable. Police officers said they had been ordered to end the "violence, killings, looting and destruction of property", the BBC reported.

Protests calling for an end to police brutality began on October 7. The demonstrations, dominated by young people, started with calls for a police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), to be disbanded.

President Muhammadu Buhari dissolved the Sars unit – accused of harassment, extortion, torture and extra-judicial killings – days later, but the protests continued, demanding broader reforms in the way Nigeria is governed.

They escalated after unarmed protesters were shot in the nation's biggest city, Lagos, on Tuesday. Rights group Amnesty International said security forces killed at least 12 people. Nigeria's army has denied any involvement.

Lagos has in recent days seen widespread looting of shops, malls and warehouses, and property has been damaged, with the businesses of prominent politicians targeted. A number of buildings have been torched and prisons attacked.

Elsewhere on Saturday, there were reports of hundreds of people looting government warehouses in Bukuru, near the central city of Jos.

The warehouses were reportedly being used to store food supplies for distribution during lockdowns imposed to help control the spread of Covid-19..