Almost exactly 10 years after suicide bombers smeared the streets of the sahelian city of Maiduguri, Borno State, with the blood of the innocent, the daredevils returned to rev up memories that ought to remain buried in the belly of history.
About 23 persons— eyewitnesses said 40 — were killed and around 140 others were critically injured last Monday when bombs exploded in three locations in the city — Post Office Flyover area, Monday Market Roundabout and the entrance of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).
Although no group had as at press time claimed responsibility for the incident, which occurred in the evening during iftar, the breaking of fast in the month of Ramadan, the authorities said the bombings were carried out by “suspected Boko Haram terrorist suicide bombers” using improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
“The cowardly attacks targeted crowded public areas in an attempt by the terrorists to inflict mass casualties and create panic within the metropolis,” the spokesman of the army’s Operation HADIN KAI, Sani Uba, said in a statement.
The Borno State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Kenneth Daso, also confirmed, in a statement, that from preliminary investigations, the explosions were carried out by suspected suicide bombers.
Last Monday’s suicide blasts were a recrudescence or reenactment of one of the deadliest bomb explosions that occurred in Maiduguri in four different locations in March, 2016, killing around 50 persons and critically injuring about 140 others. And two of the targets hit 10 years ago— Post Office axis and Monday Marke— were coincidentally also hit in the latest explosions!
The blasts are a tragedy of monumental proportions. Apart from the painful losses of precious lives, most of the surviving victims have had family and business lives tragically sundered. Their walls of survival suddenly caved in, leaving no hope of being able to pick together the bits and pieces.
Emotions ran riot as the victims regaled newsmen with their horrendous tales. Take the case of a victim, Ba Musa, who lost four sons to the incident, for instance. The hapless children were said to have been caught up in the explosion when they went to buy eyeglasses for the Sallah celebration.
A neighbour, who witnessed the tragedy, recalled: “We finished our Iftar(evening prayer to break fast) and I was pushing my fruit-cart when the blast happened. I just found myself at the hospital. I lost everything to that attack.
“He (father of the four deceased children) bought them new clothes and shoes and they came to our place to buy eyeglasses for Sallah celebration. The blast killed all of them. They have been buried”.
Another survivor, a woman who lost her daughter in the blast, battled to contain her emotions in an unusual display of stoicism. She recalled ruefully: “We had just arrived at the hospital when the bomb went off. I fell and my daughter fell lifeless. Her head exploded. They brought me inside and told me she was gone. I prayed to God because He took her. Her father died when she was five months old.”
Some petty traders, who were also victims of the blasts, almost went into a state of nadir, having lost their entire businesses to the tragedy. They saw no way of recouping unless the authorities assist them.
One of the traders, Alhaji Bashir, who spoke as he was receiving treatment at UMTH, said: “Unless something is done to help us get our businesses back on track, most of us will be frustrated even when we recover.
“Like this my friend (pointing to another victim on another bed), he relies solely on daily sales to feed his family, and suddenly this thing happened to him. Think about his family and his other responsibilities as a father. Now the blasts, in a few minutes destroyed his life savings and livelihood,” he added.
“We used to sell goods and return the money to our creditors after making gains. That was how we struggled to stand on our own. So, it will be very difficult for these people to recover unless help comes from the government,” another petty trader, who came to visit his colleagues at the hospital volunteered.
The worry of another survivor, a bricklayer, was not the injuries he sustained in the bomb explosions but how his family would survive without him in the meantime because he is the sole breadwinner.
The victim, receiving treatment at the Umaru Shehu Ultra Modern Hospital, Bulumkutu, Maiduguri, and who sustained injuries on his legs and right hand, bemoaned: “I am a father of five children, though I have to thank God for sparing my life. I am worried over who will put food on the table for the children as my wife is jobless, and here I am on admission.”
Hauwa Sanusi, was almost going berserk as she kept brooding over the fate of her younger sister, who she said had been missing since the blasts. As she lay on her sick bed, she appealed to whoever cared to listen to help locate her sister.
“I don’t know what has become of my sister. She’s been missing since yesterday (Monday). We have visited some hospitals and couldn’t find her. We are in pain, please help us,” Hauwa begged in a tear-inducing mood.
For the residents of the ancient city of Maiduguri, the latest holocaust that hit them remains like a bad dream. The city had been a hotbed of blistering insurgency, including the specter of suicide bombings.
Over two million people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands killed in the sahelian region by Boko Haram and ISWAP, one of its more domineering offshoots, as they engage the Nigerian state in an attempt to establish an Islamic caliphate.
Boko Haram, founded in 2002, began as a peaceful sect but suddenly transformed into a violent organization after the extrajudicial killing of its pioneer leader, Mohammed Yusuf, in July 2009. It was under Yusuf’s more aggressive successor, Abubakar Shekau, that the sect splintered, with ISWAP becoming the more dominant faction, regularly engaging in ferocious turf war with its rivals.
However, for a decade afterwards, the city had become a relatively tranquil, idyllic haven, having over time shaken off the vestiges of insurgency, now confined to the hitherlands.
There had not been a major bomb attack on the Maiduguri city for a decade except the isolated Christmas Eve bombing that occurred last year at a mosque, killing at least five people and injuring dozens of others. The mosque attack came a day before the airstrikes by the US in conjunction with Nigeria against Islamic State militants in the north-west.
The city had, therefore, been a refuge for a constant stream of survivors and others escaping from the sanguinary activities of Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic West Africa Province (ISWAP), whose fighters have turned the hitherlands of the north-eastern state of Borno simply into a punishing nightmare.
If the hitherlands have become havens of doom through the murderous activities of the rapacious insurgents, and suicide bombers are resurging to turn the otherwise serene city into the nest of death, where else is safe for the people?
Herein lie the larger, tragic implications of the resurgence of suicide bombings in the volatile sahelian city and environs.
More so, only three of the five suicide bombers who have infiltrated Maiduguri
with the lethal IEDs have detonated theirs. According to the Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, a professor of Agriculture, two other suicide bombers are, according to the intelligence at the government’s disposal, still hibernating in the shadows within the city, seeking an opportune time to touch off the instrument of death.
Ali Ndume, a senator representing Borno south, had revealed that some of the explosive devices were transported to Maiduguri with tricycles to evade security checks. But the governor, who spoke on Friday in an interview with BBC Pidgin, assured that security agencies are actively tracking the two remaining suspects and have intensified surveillance across the city.
Zulum urged the people to be mindful of their movements around the city for now, advising them to avoid crowded areas while the elusive bombers are still being hunted.
He attributed the suicide bombers’ infiltration to ongoing military operations in the Sambisa Forest and along the shores of Lake Chad, noting that insurgents often disperse into civilian areas to evade attacks. He said the growing population of Maiduguri — now estimated at between three and four million — makes it difficult for security operatives to effectively screen all residents.
Despite the attacks, the governor said the state has made significant progress in tackling insurgency compared to previous years. “Anyone familiar with Borno will attest that peace has gradually returned, and this madness will not be allowed to continue,” he said.
He assured residents that additional security measures have been put in place to prevent further attacks.
That is how it should be. The relative peace of Maiduguri must be defended and maintained. The resurging suicide bombers must, therefore, be hunted down. They must not be allowed to gain any foothold on the city.
However, that the explosions of this magnitude occurred at a time the US was said to have aided Nigeria with 200 troops and high-grade military equipment leaves mucus in the mouth. That intelligence could not pick the bombers the moment they sneaked into Maiduguri with the presence of US troops and the sophisticated gadgets on ground, to the extent that they sufficiently gained enough traction to successfully detonate their grisly devices is a twist of irony.
The US had reportedly deployed multiple MQ-9 drones alongside 200 troops in Nigeria to provide intelligence and training support to the Nigerian military in its ongoing fight against insurgents across the northern region.
The operation is said to be strictly focused on surveillance and advisory support, with no US personnel embedded in frontline units and no drone airstrikes being conducted.
“The US military has multiple MQ-9 drones operating in Nigeria alongside 200 troops to provide training and intelligence support to the military,” US and Nigerian officials told a foreign agency.
The deployment was said to have been requested by Nigerian authorities to help identify, track, and respond to terrorist threats in the region. Only 100 of the US troops are, however, said to have landed at the Bauchi airfield. The other 100 are still being expected.
The Director of Defence Information at Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters, Major-Gen. Samaila Uba, confirmed that US forces are operating from Bauchi airfield in the northeast.
He said in a statement: “This support builds on the newly established US-Nigeria intelligence fusion cell, which continues to deliver actionable intelligence to our field commanders. Our US partners remain in a strictly non-combat role, enabling operations led by Nigerian authorities,” he said.
The MQ-9 drones, sometimes called Reaper drones, are said to be capable of loitering at high altitude for more than 27 hours and can perform both intelligence gathering and strike missions.
The US and Nigerian officials clarified that the aircraft currently in Nigeria are being used exclusively for surveillance. “Our US forces are helping Nigeria identify, track and respond to terrorist threats,” Uba said, without elaborating on specific operations.
The provision of these sophisticated technology-driven equipment from US is highly thrilling. Let the training of Nigerians in manning them, however, be fast-tracked so our military could take maximum advantage of those high- grade hardware to torpedo the terrorists’ capabilities and decimate them.
Let the Federal Government scale down 2027 politicking to devote more attention to the growing security maelstrom in the country and work at securing more of the kind of aid that came from the US.
The Chief of Defence Staff and his team have already relocated to Maiduguri to coordinate operations in the wake of multiple explosions at the behest of President Bola Tinubu. That is responsive.
Our military has been wonderful in the various theaters of war. The galant troops have been giving a good account of themselves, making great sacrifices to secure the nation’s territorial integrity against a crop of vile and villaneous foes that have subjected our people to a pernicious regime of larceny, fear and oppression.
However, it is time we got more proactive in the campaign against these insurgents and bandits because they are getting more audacious and ferocious by the day. Not only have they utterly petrified vast swathes of the north, they are gradually spreading their tentacles to the south as well. They should be stopped.
The best crime fighting strategy is to stymie the act at the planning stage. This is the essence of technology-driven surveillance and intelligence tactics, the likes we are now getting. Modern warfare thrives more on them and less on face-to-face combat.
Let’s go for more of sophisticated military hardware and take maximum advantage of them. This is the best way to defeat terror and free every swathe of our territory from the unconscionable mauruders.
Copyright @NewsClick Nigeria Media. No part of this piece or whole should be copied, used or shared without due credit to NewsClick Nigeria – www.newsclickng.com