Some of the Abuja bomb blast victims reounted their ordeal yesterday. The incident that almost paralysised activities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Monday.
Friends, families and neighbours of survivors also shared their feelings.
At the Asokoro General Hospital, one of the victims, Odey Samson, who said he was responding to treatment, was caught in the blast alongside his two other brothers while trying to board a bus at the Nyanya Park.
John Atanniel, another victim at the hospital, said: “I was at Nyanya that yesterday (Monday) at about 7:10am. I just heard the loud bang and I am one of the victims. I just met myself at the clinic here; I don’t know how it happened again. I was about boarding the board. It was the El-Rufai (high-capacity) bus. But, I thank God I am alive.”
Another victim, Blessing Age, a ticket supervisor with the Abuja Urban Mass Company, one of the operators of the high-capacity buses at the park, said: “I didn’t know what happened. I just saw myself on the ground. I was struggling to come out and someone else that was not affected came to help me out. I really thank God for my life.”
Age, who holds a National Diploma, is from Imo State.
A fruit seller, who was affected by the blast, Mrs. Ebere Ibezim, said she was on her way from Nyanya to Zuba to purchase fruits. She said it happened like a movie to her.
Her husband, Mr Ibezim, said: “When I heard the incident yesterday, I was very sad because this Nigeria we are now, despite the fact that I am a citizen, I am not getting anything from this country. See how they put me in problem now. See how this country puts me in this problem. We don’t have any job; we are just a humble family suffering. Yet, see now what they have done to me. All her money with which she was going to buy goods from Zuba for sale at the market had been lost, including her phone.
“She told me that when she boarded the bus going to Zuba, as God would have it, she was hungry. She went out of the bus to buy something to eat. Before she came back, the thing exploded and all the people she left in the bus perished.
“I call on government to stop this thing because we are not safe now; wherever we are now, we are not safe. Let them come and do something. We had been hearing this thing from outside; now, it has reached us here now. Where are going now? My children are here crying.”
For another victim, Charles Oguike, on admission at the Asokoro General Hospital, Abuja, he was a second time lucky. He told reporters he narrowly escaped the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment stampede which killed about 10 people in Abuja last month.
Oguike, who graduated from the university in 2010, has been searching for job since leaving school.
He said: “I stay in Nyanya, the thing happened yesterday when I was going to Wuse Market. I used to leave house 7 o’clock, 7.30; in the process when I got there to Nyanya bus, where we used to enter El-Rufai bus, I bought my ticket and queued and in the process, there was an explosion.
“The explosion happened in such a way that I couldn’t recognised myself; I was seeing so many dead bodies. Then, I know that apart from breath, life is nothing. In fact, in my own case, this is the second time; I escaped the Immigration stampede. Now I have escaped death from bomb blast.”
Also at the Asokoro General Hospital, neighbours of the dead came to identify them. One of them was a police constable, Friday Efiong who just returned to Nigeria after nine months peace keeping mission in Sudan. The late Effiong was on his way to work when he died in the blast. He left home early to report at duty post at the Wuse Zone 3 Police Station but unfortunately, fate played a fast one on him.
A neighbour said the late Efiong was married with a child. He hailed from Edo State.
The late Effiong’s landlord, Musa Suleiman, said he was a good man. He said: “He is the kind of neighbour that I will always wish for even for a hundred times and that is why I am touched by what happened to him. He left home after six on Monday morning. Usually, he always called his wife anytime he arrived work to reassure her that he was safe and when he did not call her on Monday after the blast, she became worried and notified us; so, we began the search. The head doctor in charge of the mortuary informed us that we would have to fill out a form of the victims data and and eventually the police would allow us take him away.
My eyes, ears were blocked
At the National Hospital, Abuja, a bricklayer and father of two, Chidozie Iyoke from Enugu State, said: “I was going from Keffi to Area 11 because that is where I do my building work. I live in Keffi. On my way, I stopped at Nyanya Park to enter bus. So, when I entered the park with my working tools, one mind told me to shift. So, I moved to the back of El-Rufai bus, and before I knew it, I heard loud blast and my eyes and ears were blocked and all glasses and many other things began to fall on me.
“When I regained consciousness, I felt pain in my hands and legs. I discovered my hands and some parts of my body got burnt and I managed to come out of the people. I thank God, and from there, I trekked to this hospital.
“Now, I am feeling better than that of yesterday, because, after entering hospital I could not move my body again. But now, I can go out to even buy something for myself. All kudos go to God and the medical team.”
Also, a driver, Osaretin John, from Edo State, said: “I am a driver and I ply the Lagos-to-Abuja route every two days. When I woke up yesterday morning (Monday), I brushed my mouth and I moved to the back of vehicle within the park and on my way coming back, I heard a blast. I fell down and every where turned dark. When I rose, I saw people running up and down, and I too ran out of the park and I talked to one man, who directed me to this hospital.”
Many others told their stories. Bello Alihu, 30, and cigarette merchant at the park said: “I was selling at the park when I heard the bomb blast and what I noticed was that I was on the ground and I was conscious till I got to the hospital. I was first taken to Maitama hospital before I was moved to the National Hospital because there was no space. I am married with two children. They are in Sokoto.”
Johanna Ibrahim, a driver with a private firm, said: “I dropped at the Nyanya Park to buy my ticket. What saved me was that I left the bus to buy water before the blast. I would have been dead. But after the sound I did not know what happened. Every where was dark. It was later that I realised that my face and body had been burnt. I was shouting and crawling for help. I was going to work when it happened. I work with a private firm at Wuse 2. I got married in December and my wife is two months pregnant. I am going through pains now. I pray that God should see me through. My wife was here but because of my condition I told them not to allow her see me because she will be crying.”
Another victim at Maitama General Hospital, Samuel Fila told reporters he was still encountering ear problems.
Fila said: “They have treating me fine, but I have been having problems; I can still hear the sound of the bomb blast echoing in my brain even though I don’t hear clearly.”
Still searching for colleague
Staff of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) are still searching for a colleague, Jonathan John, who was also involved in the bomb explosion. According his colleagues from BOA, John was rescued but died in the early hours of yesterday from injurious.
On receiving the sad news, Mrs Hilda Ishaka, who shared the same desk with the late John, collapsed; she is being resuscitated at the Wuse General Hospital at the time of filing this report.
The late John was the secretary to a top official of the bank before the bomb explosion in Nyanya.
For some relatives, it was so bad that they watched haplessly as their brother was consumed by fire. Mr. Hamza Umar, a staff of Alpha plus, got to the scene while the fire raged.
He told reporters at the Wuse General Hospital, Abuja that even though they met their brother before he was rushed to the hospital alongside other victims, they had not been able to locate him.
“When this incident happened, my brother who knew that he left the house rushed to the place immediately. He met him on the ground, one leg had already been burnt at that time.
“He met fire on the ground, he tried to quench the fire. But at that time he tried to remove him but the security did not allow him to continue to remove him from the fire.
“But when they later came back, he was nowhere to be found. I don’t know where they carried him to, whether he is dead or he is still alive.
“According to my brother, the time he was trying to rescue him, he was already not very much alive. But you know somebody can be unconscious for three days. We don’t know whether he is alive or not.
“He was 20 years old, still single, just finished secondary school from Kogi State but he lives in Nyanya. He lives with his brothers.”
Umar said they had searched fruitlessly for their brother who was a recharge card seller at the Nyanya motor park.
Umar said: “We have a brother, Isa Nuhu. He worked at that particular place this thing happened. We have been looking for the boy from hospital to hospital. We started from Asokoro yesterday, went back to Maitama and later to National Hospital.
“Even that yesterday, we were at this hospital but up till now, we have not seen him, either dead or alive. We have not been able to identify him.
“Right now, the Wuse General Hospital is referring us to go back to the National Hospital so we are going back to National Hospital now, up till now we don’t know what to do.
“My brother sells recharge cards and repairs handsets. He left the house early yesterday about 6am that is the time he used to leave the house to sell cards to people going to work in the morning.
“We are still going up and down searching, for us to even see whether he is dead or alive; even if he is dead, for us to even see his corpse before we know what we can do further.”
Govt must act
Umar urged the Federal Government to stop the rising insurgency in the country.
He said: “In view of this development, I advise government; these things that are happening are uncalled for and they are not even helping our country. I advise the Federal Government to curtail this problem and encourage the security.”
A man, whose two children were involved in the blast, was praising God for the survival of his two children, Joseph and Babaginda.
A staff of Karu Local Government Council, Chief Waziri Yamida, said: ”Two of my children were involved yesterday. I thank God. I feel unhappy over it but at long last I really thank God because none of them died.
“The only one that is in the hospital has an injury on his legs and he needs only the stitches to be removed and he is here with the Doctors at the Wuse General hospital.
“I thank God he is able to talk and he is responding very well. So, even to talk he has no problem and the doctors are really trying their best to attend to all of them and even yesterday when the Senator came around and the Minister, they were trying to make sure that everybody is okay.
“Joseph works with a construction company. Their vehicle got burnt. I didn’t know how they managed to come out. Joseph was riding his motorcycle, immediately he just passed the area, the blast happened.
“I thank God because they are all alive. I commend the nurses attending to them. I have not been asked to pay anything. The government is taking charge of drugs and everything.”
Abba Sule Panda, a civil servant, came to claim one of the dead victims, identified as Alhaji Abba. He was 38 and had two wives and eight children.
Panda said Abba was a commercial driver who came to Abuja from Kano around 10 oclock the night before with the hope of loading his passengers to Kano on Monday morning.
He said the victim was the first born in his family with several younger ones and children of his own. He called on the government to tackle Boko Haram.
Another relative of a dead victim, Paul Ojiku, a businessman, said he had come to identify his 24-year old nephew who worked under him at the neighbourhood market in Wuse Zone 3. He said the victim left the house around 7 o’clock to the shop.
Ojiku said: “It is so painful. We have gone to all the hospitals that they took the victims to but we have not been able to find my nephew.”
Mr Mathais Aggie also lost his 32- year old younger brother, Aggie Cornelius Abba, in the blast. He said Cornelius was a graduate of the University of Maiduguri and was working in Golden Gate Hotel, Abuja, he said that Cornelius had been with him the night before till 10’ oclock where they discussed family issues before leaving to go and rest in his own house in Mararaba. The family was disturbed when they learnt of the blast on the day of the incident and began calling his number since they were aware that he usually went to work early and always boarded bus at the park.
“Eventually one of the attendants picked the phone that had been ringing for so long and informed us that the owner of the phone was dead and that we should come to Asokoro general hospital and that was how we came and identified him.” He said.
He also added that the issue of security in the country is very sensitive and the government needs to put more efforts by creating more awareness because the people that were killed yesterday were not part of decision making in the country but this are the people dying like chicken or ordinary fowl.
