• Gaidam condoles with victims as CDS meets with regional chiefs to fast-track MNJTF
Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri and Senator Iroegbu in Abuja รข€¨
Two teenage suicide bombers yesterday morning detonated two bombs that left six persons dead, including a pregnant woman, and 26 others injured in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital.
The first attack, which happened at 7.30 am at the entrance of the busy Damaturu central bus station, was triggered by the girl.
It was gathered from eyewitnesses that she was stopped by security personnel at the entrance of the bus park to be searched, but she ran to a bus that was full of passengers and was about to depart the park.
One of the local security personnel at the park, Mani Gambo, told journalists that the little girl was quick to pull away from the security check and ran close to a vehicle carrying some people before detonating the explosive strapped on her.
Gambo said: “We saw the little girl coming in and stopped her. As I was about to screen her, she quickly ran towards a bus which was coming from inside the bus park.
“Before I could comprehend what was happening, all I heard was a loud bang which threw me off the ground.
“When I was able to gather my thoughts together, I saw the mutilated body of the same girl that came to me.”
The second incident happened about an hour later at the Pompomari axis of the Damaturu ring-road bypass when a teenage boy detonated explosives strapped on him.
Eyewitnesses revealed that the boy detonated the bomb shortly after he escaped from passengers who had arrested him to hand him over to the military because he was suspected of carrying an improvised explosive device on his person.
Musa Abdul, who told journalists that he was in a tricycle with the suicide bomber, said: “Immediately the boy came into our Keke NAPEP (local parlance for tricycle) I felt uncomfortable as I suspected he might be a suicide bomber.
“I asked him where he was going and he said he was headed to Tasha (bus park). I then asked him what he wanted to go and do at the park or where he is travelling, because I did not see him with any bag but he could not give me any satisfactory answer.
“At that point, I held the boy and to my surprise, I discovered he had a bomb strapped to his waist. I then held his two hands and asked the other passengers to come down.
“I told the driver of the NAPEP to make a U-turn so that we could go to the next military checkpoint. It was in the process of trying to take him to the military checkpoint that he wriggled himself free and started running. The next thing we heard was the loud explosion and that is how he died.”
The spokesman of the Yobe State Police Command, Toyin Gbadegesin, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), who confirmed both incidents, said the police was working tirelessly to fish out the criminal elements that continue to use children as weapons of mass destruction.
The Medical Director of Gen. Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital, Damaturu, where the corpses and injured were taken, Dr. Garba Musa Fika, told journalists that the total number of casualties were 32.
Fika said: “We have a total of 32 casualties, six are dead including the two suicide bombers. We have three cases for surgery with no case of referral yet.”
The Executive Secretary of Yobe State Emergency Management Agency, Musa Idi Jidawa, who also confirmed the death of six persons, however, revealed that 22 suffered minor injuries from the bus park blast.
Reacting to the twin blasts, the state governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam, said he was heartbroken owing to the attack.
The governor, who described the attacks as “callous, senseless and condemnable”, said his heart was with the families of the victims.
The governor, in a statement signed by Abdullahi Bego, his spokesman, said: “At this time of so much sadness, Governor Gaidam expresses his heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the families of victims. He prays Almighty Allah to grant repose to the souls of those who died and quick recovery to those who sustained injuries.
“Already, the governor has directed that the injured victims be given quick and free treatment at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital, where they have been taken for medical care.”
The governor urged the people across the state to continue “in the tradition of vigilance, prayers and support for security agencies as they push on with their effort to rid our state of the unspeakable violence that has caused so much pain and death”.
But in a bid to stem the wave of suicide attacks and end the scourge of terrorist attacks perpetuated by Boko Haram, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Gabriel Olonisakin, yesterday visited Chad Republic where he joined other regional military chiefs to deliberate on the agreement to accelerate the deployment of the 8,700-strong Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF).
A statement by the spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Col. Rabe Abubakar, said the Chiefs of Defence Staff from the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) member countries met in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, and finalised details of deployment of a joint force to fight Boko Haram which has sworn allegiance to ISIS and killed hundreds of people through suicide bombings in the last three months.
He said Olonisakin had been working round the clock towards actualising the presidential directive to end Boko Haram terror attacks within three months.
“To this end, the meeting discussed modalities for the deployment of a joint force to two command posts in Nigeria and Cameroun. Also, officers seconded to the MNJTF in N’Djamena were ordered to report immediately to their post, as operations at the force headquarters have commenced,” Abubakar added.
Present at the meeting were the Chiefs of Defence Staff from the LCBC member countries, the MNJTF commander and other senior military delegates. The LCBC member countries are Cameroun, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin Republic.
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