Police blame Boko Haram for police headquarters attack - 234 next news

Security personnel scamper for safety when the explosives went off

The National Police Headquarters, Abuja was yesterday rocked by a blast from an explosive-laden car that was driven into the compound by a suspected bomber. The attack, which claimed at least two lives, came barely 24 hours after the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Ringim, boasted that the violent Islamist sect, Boko Haram, would be suppressed in days.

A traffic warden near the scene who requested anonymity said the explosion took place shortly after Mr Ringim's convoy entered the building. He said the bomber, who was driving an old model Mercedez Benz car, was right behind the IG's incoming convoy, and gained entrance into the building premises despite efforts to dissuade him by policemen riding in the last vehicle in the convoy.

Sources say that as soon as the suspected bomber entered the premises, he attempted to park the car beside that of the inspector general but was stopped by a police superintendent who forced him to move to an adjacent parking garage.

According to police spokesperson, Olusola Amore, "The traffic warden who entered the vehicle of the suicide bomber to direct him to the car park was blown off along with him as soon as they got to the park."

Early visitors to the scene say burning flesh and car parts flew out of the building and landed in adjacent streets, and cars parked metres away from the building had their windows shattered. Mr Amore said that over 700 cars were affected, with half of them destroyed.

When NEXT visited the scene about 30 minutes after the blast, military officers were seen guarding a human body part on a street near Protea Hotel, Asokoro, and there was blood beside the fence of the hotel near the police headquarters. A police cap with bloodstains could be seen by the walls of the police headquarters although the body of the victim was not there.

Only a day earlier, in response to Mr Ringim's statement vowing to end the menace of Boko Haram, the group responded by promising an all out war. It also threatened that it was pulling out of all peace talks with the government. A police officer at the scene of the blast said smugly that his colleagues have no doubt that, "the IG comment in Maiduguri led to this suicide attempt on his life".

Panic everywhere

Although the police claimed that only one person died besides the bomber, the actual figures may be more than that as at least three ambulances were seen arriving and leaving the police headquarters, taking victims to the Asokoro General Hospital. Many of the victims where injured during the stampede that followed the blast, which set off a series of explosions as cars burst into flames.

Doctors battled to save the lives of the 11 people who were rushed to three hospitals following the explosions. Correspondents of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who went to the National Hospital, Asokoro General Hospital and Garki General Hospital, report that the victims who sustained various degrees of injuries, were in stable conditions, according to doctors.