Maiduguri Bombing: Borno Government confirms 4 Dead, 8 Injured

The Borno State Government, Northeast Nigeria has confirmed that four persons died and eight others were injured in the multiple bombing that hit Maiduguri, the state capital. 

HumAngle had earlier broken the news of an attack on Maiduguri, the state capital barely an hour before the arrival of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari who was in the city on an official state visit. 

The bombs were fired into locations around the Maiduguri International Airport at about 10:45 a. m. President Buhari’s  aircraft landed at the Air Force Base wing of the Airport at about 11:45 a.m. 

The military and the police had withheld comments on the attack despite efforts made by journalists. 

Yabawa Kolo, the Director-General of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, later confirmed the attacks, saying that “the two of the explosions that hit Maiduguri today killed four persons at Old airport junction and injured about six others.”

“A second one landed in the Bulumkutu Kasuwa general area where two persons were injured,” she said. 

Meanwhile, President  Buhari who landed at the Air Force base had briefly met and addressed some of the troops at the base before he proceeded to carry out commissioning of projects executed by the Borno State Government and those done and donated to the public by popular businessman, Muhammadu Indimi. 

Speaking after the project commissioning that ended at the University of Maiduguri where an ultra-modern Distance Learning Center was built by Indimi, the president said his government is not resting on the issue of insecurity. 

“There are security failures everywhere in the country, particularly the Northwest region; where the same people and culture steal each other’s property.

“They also kill each other, and I wonder for what?

“We have ordered more military hardware from the United States which include aircraft, helicopters, and the armed bandits should know we are going to be very hard on them.”

President Buhari insisted that Nigerians must appreciate that the security situation in the country today can not be compared to what it was when he took over in 2015. 

“We have to analyze what the security situation was when we came on board compared to what is happening now in the North.  The people from the Northeast know better than anybody about the security situation in Nigeria.

“The Boko Haram terrorists kill people in the market places, in the mosques, and the church and chanting Allahu Akbar  (God is great) and I’d say God is God of justice; you cannot kill people, and then call on God’s name.

“The terrorists should either preach what they are doing or they don’t know what they are saying by calling on God’s name.”

Earlier, Babagana Zulum, Governor of Borno State had commended the president for visiting the state twice in a month even as he pleaded for more assistance in the area of health sector development which he said had been destroyed by Boko Haram.