July 23, 2014 might have passed like any other day, but not so for 37 innocent Nigerians who are currently receiving treatment in major hospitals in Kaduna. They will remember the day for yers to come as a black Wednesday.
That was the day a twin bomb explosions rocked the Kaduna metropolis. The blast dispatched no fewer than 49 persons to the world beyond. Their 37 kinsmen are also in agonising pains just because they were unlucky to be at the right place at the wrong time.
At the time of writing, majority of the victims were at the military hospital in the heart of Kaduna metropolis, receiving treatment on mattresses placed on bare floor.
One of the injured survivors, nine-year-old Abubakar Usman, had left his family house at Hayin Damani in company with two of his siblings to Kawo Market to shop for Sallah wears. It was in that process that a deafening sound swept his feet off the ground.
Damani said: “I heard the sound and the ground shook. At first, I thought I had gone deaf with the echoes of the sound from the explosion resounding in my ears. I could not hear what people were saying any longer. And I thought that was all until I tried to get up but could not. That was when I started feeling pains in my legs.
“Some government workers came an carried me. They brought me to this place and told me that my leg is broken.”
While two of Abubakar’s siblings survived the blast, he may have to celebrate his Sallah on his sick bed at 44 Army Reference Hospital. He sustained first degree burns and a fracture on his left leg.
For Abdulrazak Suleiman, a generator repairer, it was the drive for business that turned him into a victim of bomb blast. His shop is located on Kano Road, about two kilometres to the scene of the incident. He told our correspondent that he was only honouring the call by a client to come and check a faulty generator.
“I received the call with excitement, believing that I was going to make some money because I had been sitting down all day long without a job. So, I quickly jumped on my bike and rode down to Kawo.
“On approaching my client’s shop, I was suddenly thrown off my bike and I hit my head on the ground. I still thank God that I didn’t die,” he said.
Suleiman was being treated for head injury on account of the incident.
A female victim, also at 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, identified as Habiba Adamu, said she had travelled all the way from Birnin Kebbi to attend the grand finale of Sheik Dahiru Bauchi’s Ramadan Tafsir. She said she arrived in Kaduna safely, and like many other admirers of the Sheik, she waited to wave at the great Islamic scholar as he was driving out of the venue of the Tafsir.
She said: “I was at the roadside when the Sheik passed. So, I wanted to leave immediately too, but I didn’t know what happened next until I woke up in the hospital in the night.
“Now, look at me, It is as if hot water was poured all over my body. If I had known, I would not have left Birnin Kebbi yesterday. Now my children will have to celebrate Sallah without me.”
At Yusuf Dantsoho Memorial Hospital, the victim still on admission there was a young man whose eye was blown off by the blasts. He was crying for help from government so that he could be flown abroad for treatment.
The 18-year-old man named Ahmadu Bala was in critical condition on his hospital bed when The Nation correspondent visited the hospital.
Narrating his ordeal to our correspondent in a faint tone, he said he was caught by the blast after leaving the venue of the Ramadan lecture by Sheik Dahiru Bauchi.
According to him, “I was on my way back from the Tafsir (Ramadan lecture) at Murtala Square when I heard a loud sound. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself on the floor far away from where I remember standing.
“I felt my head was very heavy. Before I realised it, my right eye had been blown off by the bomb and I lost consciousness. I was rushed to Yusuf Dantsoho Hospital here by a good Samaritan, as I was told after I regained consciousness.”
The bomb victim said he came from a village called Labar, near Jaji, in Kaduna State just to attend the Sheik Dahiru Bauchi lecture. He pleaded with the concerned authorities to come to his aide so that he could stay alive.
“I am pleading with the Kaduna State Government to look into my plight and take an urgent measure to save my life and the lives of others affected by the bomb,” he said.
The Nation gathered from a source at the hospital that out of the five victims brought to the hospital, Bala’s case was the most serious. “His right eye is blown off. When they brought him in, we quickly took him to the operating room, took care of the wound and he is now stable and partially responding to treatment,” a male worker in the hospital said.
He however said that Bala needed to be flown abroad for treatment. “We suggest that the government should, as a matter of urgency, fly the young man abroad for proper treatment because his eye as well as part of his skull was affected by the blast. If it is not treated promptly, the wound can get infected and it may have a long-term effect on the victim,” he said.
He added that five victims of the bomb at Alkali Road were brought to the hospital when the blast occurred on Wednesday, but four of them came in with minor injuries and had been treated and discharged.
