Fourteen people were killed and more than two dozen injured when a car plowed into a popular carnival at Calabar in southeast Nigeria, the local head of highway security said.

"The incident occurred when a Toyota Camry car lost control and rammed into (a) crowd of onlookers," Maikano Hassan, the local commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps, said in a statement.

Fourteen people died and 29 were injured on Wednesday, some of them critically, according to the statement.

The injured included three girls and two boys.

The incident happened as the crowd were watching a motorcyclists' parade in front of a mosque in the district of Bogobiri.

Calabar, the capital of Cross River state, hosts one of West Africa's most prestigious carnivals each December.

The official site says that the event draws nearly 2 million revelers annually.

The governor of Cross River, Ben Ayade, urged police to apprehend the driver, who he said sped off after "the accident."

He also ordered them to investigate how the driver was able to enter an area that was supposed to have been closed off for the carnival.