Ola Awoniyi
Sapa-AFP
ABUJA: A bombing at a bus station packed with morning commuters on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital killed 71 people and wounded 124 yesterday, with the president blaming the attack on Boko Haram Islamists.
The explosion rocked the Nyanya station south of Abuja at 6.45am, leaving body parts scattered across the terminal and destroying dozens of vehicles.
It was the bloodiest single attack to hit Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, which includes Abuja and surrounding areas.
Officials had earlier said that two separate blasts ripped through the compound, but later said the damage may have been caused by just one bomb.
The explosion “emanated from a vehicle” parked within the station, said Charles Otegbade, head of search and rescue at the National Emergency Management Agency (Nema).
National police spokesman Frank Mba put the toll at 71 dead and 124 injured, with the wounded being treated at area hospitals.
Visiting the site, President Goodluck Jonathan vowed that Nigeria would overcome the brutal insurgency being waged by Boko Haram, blamed for killing thousands of people across the north and centre of the country since 2009.
“The issue of Boko Haram is quite an ugly history within this period of our own development,” Jonathan said. “But we will get over it. The issue of Boko Haram is temporary.”
The Islamists have carried out several previous attacks in and around the capital, including a 2011 car bombing at the UN headquarters in the city that killed at least 26 people.
The explosions left a hole roughly 1.2m deep and spread debris across the compound, witnesses said.
“I saw bodies taken away in open trucks,” said witness Yakubu Mohammed. “It is difficult to count them because the bodies were burnt and in pieces.”
A second witness, Suleiman Aminu, said he believed the initial blast came from a minibus parked near larger commuter vehicles, and that commuters who had queued up to board were the likely target.
Nyanya is a densely populated suburb of Abuja, filled with government and civil society workers who cannot afford the city’s exorbitant rents.
Boko Haram violence has cost more than 1 500 lives already this year, but most of the unrest has affected villages in the remote north-east.
In May, the military launched a massive offensive to crush the Islamist uprising and has described Boko Haram as being in disarray and on the defensive.
A major attack in the capital, just a few kilometres from the seat of government, will likely cast doubt on the success of that campaign.
Terminals have been among Boko Haram’s favoured targets, including multiple, co-ordinated bombings at a terminal in the northern city of
Kano last year that killed more than 40 people.
Jonathan, who is expected to face a tough re-election battle next year, has faced intense criticism over the continuing Boko Haram violence.
With much of the recent violence contained in the north-east, Jonathan had been able to claim that progress was being made in the battle against the Islamist rebels.
An escalation of violence in or near Abuja would pile further pressure on the embattled president.
Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, who has been declared a global terrorist by the US, vowed in a recent video message to widen the group’s violence outside its north-eastern stronghold.
Last week, Boko Haram suspects detained at the State Security Service headquarters in Abuja, next door to the residence and office of Jonathan, staged a failed jailbreak in which it is suspected that they had outside help. The agency said 21 detainees were shot and killed and two agents wounded in a shoot-out that lasted more than two hours.
The militants are blamed for attacks in north-east Nigeria that have killed more than 64 people in the past week, including eight teachers living at a boarding school that had been closed because of frequent attacks on schools in which hundreds of pupils have died.
Jonathan said the latest presumed Boko Haram attack and others like it were “unnecessary distractions that are pushing us backwards.”
Nigeria is Africa top oil producer and largest economy, but more than 80 percent of its 170 million people live on less than $2 (R21) per day.
Analysts say that the Boko Haram unrest has partly stalled economic growth and scared away potential investors.
“The government is doing everything to make sure that we move our country forward,” Jonathan said.
l Last night the South African government sent its condolences to the people of Nigeria.
“The South African government reiterates its condemnation of all forms and manner of terrorism. South Africa believes that terrorism, in any form and from whichever quarter, cannot be condoned,” a statement by the Department of International Relations and Co-operation said.