Abuja market bomb ruffles beautiful city!
This week, another bomb went off in an Abuja market within a mile of our hotel. With two bomb blasts in two visits in as many months, our visiting team must be jinxed.
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Though we nervously attempted to tease this away, it soon became obvious that the threat posed by the terrorist group, Boko Haram, has taken a different twist for the worse. In April, during our initial visit, the BBC reported that at least 70 people died from a bomb blast at a bus station in the outskirts of Abuja.
This was followed almost immediately by the abduction of 200 schoolgirls in Northern Nigeria. As if ordained to occur in pairs, yesterday’s disaster had an equally bizarre precursor four days earlier –the death of eight and injury of twelve from yet another bomb blast in a medical school in Kano, Nigeria’s second biggest city.
If our Nigerian colleagues considered the April bombing episode some transient bad wind, it is clear this recent madness has caught their attention. Whoever set these people up to cause confusion has lost control of them.
At first, it was limited to some part of the country in the name of ensuring a stricter enforcement of Sharia. Now it is like ordinary Nigerians everywhere are being killed! It doesn’t make sense!” one reflected.
With planned Presidential elections early next year, many are quick to draw political linkages and blame the unseen hands of evil opponents of President Goodluck Jonathan. Another Nigerian colleague then attempted an analysis aimed at demonstrating how political opponents of one Nigerian leader or the other have in the past identified what might appear to be the weakest link to successfully perpetrate acts of sabotage against that President.
“Obasanjo had acts of sabotage in the Niger Delta to grapple with, with many oil pipes being blown up. With Yar’aAdua, you may recall the intense Muslim-Christian sectarian violence that broke out.
As soon as Jonathan became President, the Niger Delta bombings stopped and Boko Haram’s attacks took over. I also believe that whoever was initially behind it has now lost control.”
If logic is to be followed, then a possible Jonathan win may not significantly ameliorate the situation. If anything, the violence and acts of sabotage and terrorism may escalate and worsen.
As a team, caution has become our watchword in the remaining days. Dinner appointments have been cancelled, as have unscheduled work appointments not to mention severely curtailing our daily movements. Family, friends and colleagues are sending in frantic messages reeking with worry and concern.
Possibly, the threat is perceived more strongly outside than within. A colleague of ours operating out of Nigeria has become our security eyes, ears and nose as she keenly keeps a close eye on the evolving security situation. She makes a real effort, scouting for security alerts, keeping us frequently updated, and laying the groundwork should any rapid evacuation become necessary. It feels good and reassuring to know friends and colleagues are paying close attention. She is quick to advice against any “non-essential travel,” in the process severely curtailing our movement to the training venue, the hotel and the airport.
It does not go unnoticed that her regular security alerts are a direct outflow from sound measures put in place by her government to protect its citizens globally while all attempts to find out what security alerts are being put out by the Government of Ghana to its citizens travelling in different parts of the world have thus far drawn loud blanks!
It would also appear that my colleagues from two different countries, find the security counter measures on the ground less than assuring–no extra security checks, no equipment for detecting whether or not our car is carrying ‘contraband’, and we observe portions of the hotel without visible security, thus raising concerns about unauthorised access!
Is the security really on top of this Boko Haram insurgency or are they dabbling in reactive and unsustainable high visibility presence without any real depth? Are there more effective ways of tackling this threat as suggested by security experts in the West Africa region?
It would be really sad for the vibrant life in this beautiful city of Abuja to be tainted and curtailed by evil ideologues. Why should we be forced to decline an unforgettable dinner dalliance at the famous “Point and Kill restaurant?” where we were promised an evening picking out live fishes for glorious execution?
Alas! Tomorrow, we leave professionally fulfilled, yet concerned for our colleagues and friends living and working in the beautifully planned city of Abuja!
Sodzi Sodzi-Tettey
www.sodzisodzi.com