Another bomb blast in Maiduguri

Posted by admin Borno, Headlines, State News Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

EARLY morning blast on Tuesday in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, left three members of the Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Restore Order, in Borno, critically injured, while members of the JTF were said to have made several arrests in connection with the bomb blast.

Speaking by phone on Tuesday, JTF spokesman, Colonel Victor Ebhaleme, told the Nigerian Tribune that the blasts, which occurred at Bullumkuttu at the roundabout leading to Pompomari, hit the JTF vehicle and three members sustained injuries.

“The blast was targeted at members of the Joint Task Force and three of our men sustained injuries but we made some arrests and investigation is ongoing on the matter to bring those culprits to book,” Ebhaleme said.

In another development, the Borno State chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Reverend Yuguda Ndurvwa, has condemned Governor Kashim Shettima’s compensation of 33 Muslim Boko Haram victims with 11 vehicles, cash donations and rebuilding of their houses destroyed by the Islamic sect, stating that the Christian community in the state is not happy with the exclusion of its members from government’s compensations, as many pastors and Christians were killed in the two-year sectarian crises that claimed many lives and properties.

He said: “I am hearing it now from you for the first time and this is a very privileged piece of information with which we are not happy, but [I am] sad on how the governor could segregate or exclude Christians killed and injured in the Boko Haram attacks, killings and bombings of our members and their churches and houses.”

He said he was summoning a meeting of the executive council of CAN on Tuesday [yesterday], to deliberate on the actions of the governor to compensate Muslim victims, while excluding their fellow Christians in the distribution and disbursement of vehicles and funds to victims of the attacks at Zannari and Kaleri wards.

The cleric, however, noted that during the February 18, 2006 sectarian crisis, no compensations were paid or distributed by the state government to any of the affected victims. The same, he added, happened when many Christians were killed and their churches burnt by the Boko Haram sect in 2009 and 2010, none of the victims or family members was compensated by the state government.

He said CAN, in 2010, demanded for a compensation of N1.5 billion for the destroyed houses and churches from the state government, but up to the time he was speaking on the “plights and sufferings” of Christians caused by the Boko Haram killings and bombings, no kobo or building material was paid and presented to any of the victims.

Meanwhile, The orientation camp of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Plateau State, was thrown into confusion on Tuesday following a rumour that the camp had been invaded by members of the Boko Haram sect.

-Tribunewp_posts