Kano blasts survivors relive experience
The relative peace enjoyed by Kano residents came to a surprising halt last Wednesday when two female teenagers, apparently agents of the dreaded Boko Haram sect, shook the foundation of the ancient city as they targeted the popular GSM Market. They killed about 18 people and injured 99, while property and goods worth millions of naira were destroyed.
Eyewitness accounts stated that a Volkswagen Space Sharon vehicle dropped off the Hijab-wearing teenage girls and zoomed off. While one of them made straight for the heart of the ever busy market, the other headed for the roadside of the market. In the twinkling of an eye, the bombs went off; people died, some were injured and a heavy stampede ensued.
The chairman of the GSM Village, Alhaji Umar Dan-Fulani, said about 20 people lost their lives in the suicide-blast. “We were in the market, and all of a sudden, we heard two deafening sounds, and people started running helter-skelter. All I can say is that I counted up to 20 dead bodies, while several people were wounded.”
The incident, said eyewitnesses, occurred at about 4:30p.m. when people were rushing in and out of the market for various transactions.
The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Muhammad Musa Katsina, while briefing reporters said the bomb blast in the GSM village happened at about 4:30p.m., and it was believed that a Volkswagen Sharon car occupied by women dropped two of the female suicide bombers and left. He explained that one of the female suicide bombers blew herself on the road, while the other found her way into the main market and blew herself in the process.
Families of the victims of the twin suicide bomb blast counted their losses as Kano State governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, visited surviving victims in hospital, urging them to take heart. Governor Ganduje, who rushed back from Abuja, visited the scene of the bomb blast, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital and Abdullahi Wase Specialist Hospital where he condoled with the victims. He assured them that the government was committed to compensating them for their losses.
When our correspondent visited AKTH, hospital authorities confirmed that 56 victims were brought in, adding that of the 56, two died while receiving treatment, 37 were treated and discharged, and 17 remained on admission. At the Murtala Specialist Hospital, 30 victims were admitted, with two deaths recorded and three were taken to the theatre with successful medical operations. At the Abdullahi Wase Specialist Hospital, 13 remained on admission and were responding to treatment.
The official figure for total victims admitted in the hospitals came to 99, with the official death toll rising to 18.
A survivor of the twin blast, Ibrahim Isa, said he was almost buried by corpses and electrocuted when the blast occurred while attempting to move out of the danger zone. According to the 30-year-old, the explosions occurred at about 4:30 p.m. immediately after he finished vending mobile phones to some operatives of the State Security Service (SSS). Isa, who sustained three fractures on his right hand and an injury to his right cheek from the electric shock, narrated that the female suicide bomber that detonated her explosive in the market stood by him and pretended to be mobile phone customer, adding that he never thought she was a suicide bomber until she committed the heinous act.
“The blasts occurred as soon as I returned from one shop where I collected some mobile phones and sold to some DSS operatives, who are my customers,” he said. “I saw the girl standing beside me but I didn’t know she was the suicide bomber until she detonated her bomb. As soon as the bomb went off, I saw many people on the ground. I was also electrocuted and thought I was going to die before Good Samaritans came and rescued us.”
Another survivor, Musa Idris, a 26-year-old final-year Department of Economics student of the Kano State Polytechnic, who had multiple fracture on his left leg, said: “On that fateful day, I finished my lectures and headed straight to the GSM market to repair my phone with the N1,000 I collected from my dad a day before for that purpose. I was hoping to beat time so that I can rush back to school to prepare for my final examination but as I was negotiating with the technician, all I could hear was a loud sound that swept me off my feet. I could not recollect anything more until I was brought to the hospital. I was dazed and unconscious.
“Now, my problem is no longer the pains I bear, but the psychological trauma of missing my final examination. Very soon, my classmates will be going for the NYSC programme, but here I am with a fractured leg. I never believed this could happen to me. I am now in a pathetic situation. I am from a poor family. My father had invested almost all his life savings on me, hoping to reap back, but now that I am about graduating, Boko Haram has put a coma on my future.”
Abdulsalam Sani, 32, and son of immediate past Commissioner for State Affairs in Kano, Comrade Aminu Abdulsalam, was also a victim. He said: “I drove to the GSM Market with the intention of buying a mobile handset. Immediately I parked my car, and in my attempt to enter the market, I heard a bomb blast. As I was making another attempt to reverse my car, not knowing that another bomb was close to where my car was, I heard another blast. And I got injured on my two legs and my right arm. That was how I was brought to AKTH.” Najib Ali, 25, who is on admission at the Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital with severe head injury, said he was in the market to buy battery for his cellular phone when the incident occurred. He prayed for God to have mercy on the souls of the dead and added that he had accepted what happened to him as predestined by God.
Speaking at the scene of the bomb blast, Ganduje described the incident as unfortunate. “This is yet another unfortunate incident that took place here, we can feel the smell of blood all over. This is a very unfortunate incident and circumstance. We pray the Almighty Allah to help those who are wounded to recover as early as possible and those who lost their lives. May Allah assure them of paradise. And the families of those who lost their lives, may Allah give them the courage and the confidence to bear the loss.
“This unfortunate incident is something that we have to continue praying to Allah to assist us. Members of the security agencies are doing all what they can do. We as the government are doing all that we can; members of the public should be observant. We should learn something from this situation, because in any unfortunate incident, there should be something to learn from it. We believe we will continue putting our efforts together, both the Federal Government and the state government and even the Local Governments, until we see the end of this insurgency.I have already directed that those in the hospital should be taken care of with all seriousness and free of charge. And those who lost their lives, we are investigating to get their identities so that we see what the government can offer to the families that they left behind.
“This is a very important market, very important market to the Kano State government and to the people of Kano State because thousands of youths earn their daily bread from this particular market. Therefore, we will meet with the leaders of this market and see how we can re-design this place. We will see how we can make this place safer, instead of operating in the open like this; that is one of the lessons we must learn from what has happened.
“So, government will invest in this market to ensure that those who are operating in this place operate in a more conducive environment and in a safer environment. It will be re-designed in such a way that there will be a checkpoint, there will be a kind of surveillance and everybody entering the market must be checked. The design will be fashioned in such a way that it will no more be business as usual. I urge members of this market operating here to continue to be vigilant and cooperate with security agencies and also cooperate with the government.”
As if Governor Ganduje had the premonition of misfortune, at an interactive session with journalists two weeks ago, he raised the alarm that terrorists were planning to infiltrate Kano, saying: “On what is happening in the north-eastern part of this country, His Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, made it a point of duty to dismantle the operation of terrorists in the north-eastern part of this country and the whole country at large. The implication of that on our side is the infiltration of those insurgents into Kano State, a kind of reflect effect. We are so conscious of that; therefore, we will re-double our efforts for security agencies in the state, especially making some modern gadgets available to security agencies so that they can be tracking the movements of those insurgents (which I don’t need to explain in the details).”
