- Last Updated on 05 June 2015
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A bomb explosion has left many dead and more with various degrees of injury in Jimeta-Yola, Adamawa state.
The blast occurred 7:40pm Thursday night just as muslim faithfuls were leaving the Mosque and most traders were closing their businesses for the day at the Gate one area of the popular Jimeta modern market. It is the first of its kind in the State capital since the advent of insurgency that has rocked the North East with Adamawa being one of the worst hit.
Emergency agents puts the death toll at 34 as at Friday morning with scores receiving treatment at various hospital across the state with Federal Medical Center & Specialist hospital, Yola receiving the most number of casualties for treatment.
Eyewitness account, however indicated that there may have been much more deaths than has been declared as bodies littered the road shortly after the blast.
Monday Banu (A.K.A. Obasanjo) a mechanic who also resides around the affected area saied he was on his way home when the blast occurred.
According to him, many of the night traders who display their wares of Fresh fish, meat and fruits in wheel barrows were just settling in for business that night when the explosion rent the air.
“The next thing I knew was people running in panic and so many people injured being either wheeled in barrows or packed in the back of small cars heading for the nearest medical facility,” he said.
Statements by the police authority at the scene of the event indicate that the explosive device was placed in a dumpster. The police had warned that residents should be wary of abandoning their refuse bins outside in the open.
Former vice president and chieftain of the new ruling party, APC, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the just sworn-in Governor of the State, Jibrilla Bindow, were among the first to visit the scene of explosion.
While promising to ensure adequate security of lives and properties in the state by increasing efforts to forestall re-occurrence, the governor also charged the people to be more vigilant and report any suspicion to the authorities.
Residents of the state are seen in hordes visiting hospitals around the twin-city in search of loved ones.
At the FMC Yola the hospital authorities are calling for the general public to donate blood for the critical conditioned victims who are currently receiving treatment.
Atiku condoles with Jimeta, Maiduguri bomb blast victims, calls for vigilance
However, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has expressed sympathy with the victims of Thursday’s bomb explosions in Jimeta-Yola, in Adamawa State, which damaged a greater portion of the popular Jimeta market and caused widespread destruction of lives and property.
The former Vice President also condoled with victims of the recent bomb blasts in Maiduguri.
Atiku in a press statement by his media office in Abuja on Friday, 5 June 2015, lamented that these renewed attacks have sowed seeds of fear, violence and destruction in many parts of the North east region of the country.
The former Vice President urged the people to unite and isolate the agents of the terrorists among them and to support the government in its effort to degrade activities of the insurgents.
Atiku Abubakar said further that the recent spate of bomb attacks is a wake-up call on the need for improved vigilance on the part of the people and intelligence on the part of the security agencies to forestall such heinous attacks.
He called on the people and the security forces to monitor carefully the displaced person’s camps to ensure that insurgents do not infiltrate the latter and where they have done so, to deny them the liberty to operate by neutralising them, isolating them and then having them fished out for prosecution.
The Turaki Adamawa said that the Boko Haram offensive against the Nigerian people would eventually fail, as the measures and alliances being put in place by President Muhammadu Buhari administration would result in the defeat of the group where ever they are found.
