ABUJA – A bomb ripped through a crowded market on the edge of an Abuja military barracks on New Year’s Eve killing four people and wounding 26 others, 11 of them seriously, the defence minister said Saturday.
“As at this moment, four people died from the blast, including a pregnant woman. Twenty-six others were injured, 11 of them seriously,” Adetokunbo Kayode said at the scene of the explosion. It is the second such attack in three months in the Nigerian capital and the first explosion near an army barracks in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999.
Kayode, a lawyer, promised a “thorough investigation” and said the attackers would be severely punished. “I suspect nobody but I assure you that we will go through a very thorough, deep investigation…Anybody that is involved in this will be tracked down and will be made to face the full wrath of the law,” he said.
All the dead and most of the injured are civilians, the minister told reporters after being briefed by security and health officials. President Goodluck Jonathan, in a statement from his office, immediately denounced the barracks attack as “new and dangerous challenge to our peace and stability.” Speaking at a New Year church service on Saturday, Jonathan vowed to rid the country of terrorists.
“For us to get where we want to go as a nation, we will have our obstacles. These explosives and explosions are part of the road bumps that are being placed but God will see us through,” he said. “They will never stop Nigeria from where we are going to, we must work and reproduce a country…where there will be no space for terrorists, a country where there will be no bombers and people with explosives to deter us.”
The bomb went off around 7pm (1800 GMT) at a popular eating and drinking spot on the fringes of the Mogadishu barracks, located in a fortified area of the city. There have been no claims of responsibility so far. “This is a new kind of crime that has just surfaced,” chief of defence staff, Air Marshal Oluseyi Petirin said, while visiting the site.
The blast site was cordoned off on Saturday morning and dozens of security officials, including soldiers, either stood guard or patrolled the area. “It’s unfortunate that some people planted a bomb where people were relaxing,” Petirin said.
“It’s the same type of incident we had in Jos,” said Petirin, referring to the multiple blasts in the central city of Jos that killed more than 80 people on Christmas Eve. An Islamic sect calling itself Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda’Awati Wal Jihad has claimed responsibility for the Christmas Eve attacks in Jos.
