A dying victim of Boko Haram bomb blast in Taraba State yesterday had just one request to NEMA officials attending to him: “Please, don’t let me die, do everything possible to save me” But as fate had its way, the man died at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Jalingo before help could reach him.
That was the pathetic fall-out from the attack by the Islamist sect in Jalingo which claimed 11 lives with scores injured. This is coming barely 24 hours after Boko Haram struck at churches within the Bayero University, Kano (BUK) when two profssors and 13 other worshippers were killed. Many people were injured in the attack.
Last Thursday, the sect carried its war to the media when it bombed The Sun, THISDAY and Moment in Abuja and Kaduna. Five people lost their lives.
Boko Haram hit Jalingo yesterday for the first time when its suicide bomber ran into the convoy of the Commissioner of Police (CP) and denoted bombs which killed no fewer than 11 people. Until yesterday, Taraba remained the only state in the North East that had experienced relative peace since the beginning of the Islamic sect’s uprising in the North, but the early morning bomb explosion changed the situation.
Daily Sun gathered that the police commissioner was in a convoy of vehicles and dispatch rider on his way to the office at the command headquarters at about 8.45am yesterday when the suicide bomber infiltrated the convoy. Sources said that the bomber might have waited for the CP’s convoy at the gate of the state Ministry of Finance building which is not far from the police headquarters from where he rammed his vehicle on the convoy. “From what we gathered, the bomber parked in front of the Ministry of Finance building and as soon as the convoy of the Commissioner of Police approached the area, the bomber started moving, drove into the convoy and detonated the explosive device,” a senior police officer, who would not want his name in print, disclosed.
Red Cross Information Co-ordinator for Taraba, Umar Waziri, who was part of the rescue team at the scene of the blast, confirmed 11 people including the suicide bomber died. Waziri told journalists in Jalingo that 10 people died on the spot while the 11th person died later at the hospital, adding that the corpses had been deposited at the FMC.
About 20 people were also said to be receiving treatment.
However, the Police Commissioner, Mamman Sule, maintained that only three people including his dispatch rider died in the accident. He also insisted he was not the target of the attack even as he said some vehicles in his convoy were damaged by the suicide bomber.
Residents of Jalingo returned to their normal businesses as some offices, shops and business centres which did not open earlier because of the incident later opened midday. But some banks and financial institutions remained shut hours after normalcy returned to the city.
Meanwhile, four worshipers were killed yesterday in Borno State by suspected Boko Haram gunmen. They were said to have invaded the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) in Dusman, Jere Local Government Area (one of the councils in the state capital) and opened fire at the pastor, one Rev. Albert Naga and three elders of the church during holy communion service.
Police authorities in Maiduguri confirmed the killings, and said the pastor and two of the worshippers were shot dead by the sect. “We got information that some suspected Boko Haram came in a Volkswagen Golf car and shot at COCIN Church pastor while he was about to administer the holy communion to worshipers. They also killed two other worshippers,” Police Public Relations Officer, Samuel Tizhe”, an Assitstant Superintendent, said, adding that “no arrest had been made.”
In Adamawa State, as motorists and passers-by saw a detachment of policemen cordoned off the busiest route that leads to the federal and state secretariats in Yola town, many passengers disembarked from commercial vehicles and pedestrians fled in different directions as a result of the perceived bomb planted at the roundabout.
Police roundabout is the biggest in the state and it is located in the centre of the town which formed an intersection with one of the roads linking the police headquarters and the Government House while the other three roads link Yola town, Government Reserved Area (GRA) Shopping complex and Faluka markets.
When Daily Sun, contacted the Police Public Relations Officer, Namuel Yoila on phone he maintained that there was no cause for alarm and that the police command was on top of the situation.
Yoila also disclosed that policemen cordoned off the roundabout and other major outlets sequel to a discovery that a car was parked at the roundabout very early in the morning and that there was no trace of the owner.
According to him, the command was investigating. The car was being searched by Press time to ascertain the security implication.
A number of civil servants and passers-by who were at the roundabout when they heard of the suspected bomb planted in the car described the scenario as unprecedented in the history of Adamawa.
Motorists returning from Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, brought the news of the explosion which led to the apprehension in Adamawa State.
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