Abuja bombing: How the elements humiliated security agencies

Posted by admin Abuja (FCT), Latest Politics, State News Sunday, January 9th, 2011

Pandemonium will best describe the scene that fateful Friday of December 31, 2010. This was after an explosive device was detonated at a part of the Mammy market located inside the Mogadishu Cantonment Barracks in Abuja where people sell roasted fish.

When the dust finally settled, four people, including a pregnant woman and three others were confirmed dead, while 24 others who suffered various degrees of burns and injuries were rushed to the General Hospital, Asokoro and National Hospital, all located in the Abuja city centre.

It was indeed a gory sight at the Asokoro Hospital and the National Hospital where the victims were taken.

One of the victims of the Abuja bomb blast being attended to by medical personnel

The market was cordoned off by the military and the police minutes after the blasts while only top-ranking officers and select group of rescue officials were allowed in. The market still remains deserted as it was completely locked up.

This is the second bombings occurring in Abuja within three months after the twin bomb blasts on October 1, 2010, which marred the Independence Day anniversary celebration and sent over 18 people to the great beyond, in addition to the hospitalisation of several other victims of the explosions.

The recent bomb blast occurred just as the nation was yet to recover from the Christmas eve’s bombing in Jos that killed dozens of people. This is why observers are still at a loss on how the supposedly tight security around the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, was easily breached and demystified by those behind the blasts.

Nobody however, has claimed responsibility for the blast, but tongues have started wagging in the direction of inefficiency in the nation’s security system, especially as the latest bomb was detonated right under the nose of Nigerian military personnel.

This development is said to represent a very real threat to national security which appears quite porous at the moment.

Specifically, the blast that rocked the Mogadishu cantonment has been described by many as a direct threat to national security in the FCT. For example, several people around the scene of the incident said openly that the blast was another reflection of years of bad leadership in the country.

The situation may have become more complicated as Nigerians begin to consider its likely bearing on the forthcoming elections, and the ability of the nation to remain intact after the exercise.

Worrisome still was that amid the killings, Aso Rock, the seat of power seems to have been incapacitated as several promises to bring the “perpetrators” to book are yet to be fulfilled even for once as murderers continue to hold sway, murdering innocent Nigerians with impunity.

Not even the arrival of the Chief of Defence Staff, CDS, Air Marshal Oluseyi Petirin, at the scene of the explosion a few minutes after the incident, could restore confidence in the people that the issue of security lapses would be addressed soon.

Like singing the same old song, Petirin said: “The explosions were carried out by people who do not want peace”, while advising people to be vigilant and not allow suspicious objects in bags to be kept where they are.

But in his reaction, Senate President, Senator David Mark tasked the Presidency to wake from slumber and tackle headlong the question of insecurity in the land. He said the Villa should urgently review and strengthen national security because of frequent bomb blasts by insurgents, from Yenagoa to Jos, and now Abuja, where such explosions killed many on New Year’s Eve.

Mark, a retired Brigadier General, in the Nigerian Army noted that strengthening national security would require the cooperation of both military and para-military agencies to plug all identified loopholes.

Echoing the same warning was the former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who said the spate of bombings in some parts of the country is a sign of failure of governance.

Babangida who advised the Presidency to accept the bombings as a failure of the system, however, canvassed for the convening of a stakeholders’ summit on the way forward out of the present doldrums.

The erstwhile PDP presidential aspirant said in a statement issued by his media aide, Kassim Afegbua, that attempt by some people to link him with the bombings was timid and barbaric, advising the government to take responsibility for the situation.

He said: “We all should agree that there is failure in governance rather than passing the buck or finding very idiotic and flimsy reasons to label some distinguished persons as being responsible for such failures. Having identified the problems, it will now dawn on us to collectively put our heads together to find appropriate solutions, bearing in mind that these criminals live among us.

“Government has a greater responsibility to jump-start the process of rallying everybody together. We must re-direct our effort, as well as double our energies. Policing is a collective responsibility; hence it will serve more useful purpose if government decides to create a synergy between it and the populace to make the intelligence gathering aspect of security more encompassing”.

-Leadership

He added: “This will serve us better than this lazy recourse to name-calling and name-dropping for the sake of politics. May Allah reward those who lost their lives with paradise and grant their families the fortitude to bear the sad loss. May the year 2011 bring forth good tidings that will take the country to its lofty place in the comity of nations”.

Joining in condemning the spate of bombings in Nigeria was the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister, Jeremy Browne, who charged Nigerian security agencies to fish out the culprits behind the attacks, which came when citizens are still smarting from recent violence elsewhere in the country.

He said: “Following the earlier incidents in Jos and Maiduguri over the Christmas period, I am shocked and saddened to learn of the bomb attack in Abuja on New Year’s eve”.

As the nation writhe in palpable frustration to seek solution to the bombings, which many described as alien to her culture, the United States Government is offering to help her out.

The agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, have been dispatched to Nigeria to help authorities to investigate the deadly bombings, especially at the Mogadishu military barracks in Abuja on New Year’s Eve.

American Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed the development.

However, many observers submitted that how President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration handles this new and dangerous dimension to security challenge in the country would determine the future of the country.wp_posts