A blast ripped through a car park outside a stadium where
President Goodluck Jonathan had addressed a re-election
campaign rally on Monday, minutes after he left, witnesses
said.
A suspected female bomber and another woman died in the
blast while six other persons sustained various degrees of
injury, according to the Police Public Relations Officer
(PPRO) in the state, DSP Fwaje Atajiri.
Atajiri, however, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that
the blast occurred near a carpenter’s shop in Kashere
Street at the Water Board area in Gombe city and not at the
campaign rally.
Coordinator of the National Information Centre, Mr. Mike
Omeri, who confirmed the blast also disclosed that the
African Union Peace and Security Council had approved the
mobilization and immediate deployment of 7,500 troops to
Nigeria to fight Boko Haram.
The blast occurred in Gombe on a day explosion rocked
three court premises in Rivers State with one of the
affected courts burnt down by fire.
An eyewitness to the blast in Gombe, Mohammed Bolari,
who was at the rally, said the explosion happened at 3:10
pm, three minutes after President Jonathan’s departure.
According to him, “the President had just passed the
parking lot and we were trailing behind his convoy when the
explosion happened, just 100 metres from the bus we were
driving in.”
Jonathan’s appearance in the city came just a day after
two blasts in the city, including one that targeted a military
checkpoint. At least five people were killed.
There was no claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attacks
but the city has been hit by suspected Boko Haram
militants in the past.
Bolari said of the latest blast: “It is difficult to say how
many people were affected because of the confused
struggle by the huge crowd leaving the venue to escape for
fear of another blast.”
He added that “the explosion led to unrest in the city, with
crowds of angry youths attacking anyone seen with any
PDP sign. They were shouting and denouncing the
President’s visit which they blamed for the attack. We had a
difficult time passing through these crowds. At one point a
crowd threw stones at our vehicle. Some reporters
sustained cuts from smashed window screens.”
Also confirming the blast while updating newsmen on the
security situation in the country in Abuja, Omeri said: “We
got confirmation that there was actually a blast at the
Water Board Junction in Gombe town. The incident took
place soon after the President and his entourage left the
stadium in Gombe. However, casualty figure is yet to be
ascertained,” he said. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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