With the recent reported announcement of a cease fire by members of the Boko Haram sect, it is expected that incidence of imported terrorist threats and its attendant fear instilled on the populace, should fizzle down. This may not be the case as bomb scare continues to rock the nation’s capital, CHIKA OTUCHIKERE writes.
The nation’s federal capital territory, in recent past, has come under the fear of Improvised Explosive Devices, IED, lurking in a dark corner and waiting to wreak destruction and havoc on life and property.
No thanks, however, to several incidents during which actual IEDs also called bombs, either planted in a corner of a premises or laden by a suicidal youth, had gone off, unleashing untold destruction. These incidents, including the October 1, 2011, bombing at the Eagle Square, independence day celebrations, the Force headquarters and the United Nations building suicide bombings and the more recent invasion of the Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, headquarters give credence to the suspicion in major corners that the dreaded Boko Haram sect have a base in the country’s seat of power.
The case of the attack on ThisDay, Abuja office, deserves a special mention. The terrorists threatened that the media was the next on the line of targets. Not long after they issued the threat, they unleashed terror, in a commando style when they simultaneously attacked three media houses in Abuja and Kaduna.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s credited grave allegation that some members of the sect or persons with allegiance to the sect have infiltrated his government and the incidents where a top brass police officer was implicated in the escape from detention of a suspected top Boko Haram operative and the arrest of the sect’s members in the home of serving legislators, further confirmed the presence of the sect in the FCT.
The police high command has always made spirited attempts to play down on such incidents, whether it is a case of a mere bomb scare or an actual bomb explosion. In the case of the former, they would always insist that it was not a bomb that was found while in the case of the later, they would understate the quantum of calamity and casualty.
A typical case was last Monday’s bomb scare at the NIPOST regional office at the popular and busy Area 10, Garki which stirred controversy as many eye-witnesses affirmed that they could not ascertain the content of the parcel.
According to eye witnesses, the alleged Improvised Explosive Devices which were wrapped in a parcel addressed to the minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and planted directly in front of the post office, were successfully detonated by the police anti-bomb squad.
However the FCT Commissioner of Police, Mr Aderenle Shinaba, who briefed the press on the incident, insisted that there was no bomb explosion in any part of the FCT, contrary to the rumour making the rounds that there was a blast.
Shinaba, clarifying the rumoured explosion, said it was the sound from a detonation carried out on the suspected bomb object by men of the Anti-bomb Squad.
Shinaba said that following information received by the command about the suspicious object at about 10am, men from the Explosive Ordnance Department (EOD) were despatched to the scene.
“The true position is that there is no bomb anywhere in Abuja today (Monday). At about 10 O’ Clock this morning, we got information that there is something that is packaged in a carton that looks like a bomb at the gate of NIPOST in Area 10.
“And because of the security situation in the country generally, the people became apprehensive and were scared. So, we had to move in promptly,’’ he said.
The commissioner stated that in order to avoid a similar incident in Kaduna where an explosion went off and killed a policeman, the anti-bomb squad men had examined the object first before detonating it. “It was that noise of detonation that sent down shivers down the spine of most people and rumours flew in the air.
“At the end of the day, what we discovered is that it is a package containing sand as well as tiles, there is nothing to indicate that it has anything to do with any form of explosive. “It has nothing to do with Improvised Explosive Device (IED),’’ he said.
Shinaba who would be giving such assurance for the upteenth time, urged the residents of the FCT as well as foreigners, to go about their businesses, saying that there was no cause for alarm.
Meanwhile, briefing newsmen on the incident, the Post Master General of the federation, Ibrahim Mori Baba, who said he could not actually confirm whether it was a bomb or some harmless object, disclosed that the said parcel was planted last Friday by a man he described as insane.
In a similar incident last year when an explosion which shattered the glass windows of some houses in Wuse 2, the police also swiftly debunked the allegation that it was an IED explosion. Shinaba who also briefed on that incident, said the explosion was from the cylinder of a washing machine which became over heated and exploded. Although no casualty was reported, the incident sent a chill wave of fear down the spines of many FCT residents.
In another incident in Wuse 2, which can easily pass for a melting pot and shopping mall for not a few rich and influential persons in the nation’s capital, with its array of nite clubs and boutique a super stores, a vehicle alleged laden with explosives was discovered near a nite club. The incident gave many FCT residents nightmares with the heightening fears of terrorists in the area.