Sani Aliyu, an activist with the Rights and Democracy Volunteers has said that the bombings at a motor park in Nyanya, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, which left scores dead and many injured could have been averted if the Defence Headquarters had responded appropriately to a security tip-off.
Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja at a roundtable event organised by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Foundation to discuss cooperation between civil society organisations and the media on the security challenge, Aliyu said about a week ago, he had spotted some suspicious looking young men in town very early in the morning. The young men were wearing head bands and were smoking.
According to him, he went to the military headquarters and reported but they did nothing, adding that the young men themselves came in vehicles and stood in front of the military headquarters for some time and the military still did nothing.
He explained that after Monday’s bombings, he went back to the military headquarters but he was told that they couldn’t arrest the boys as they had no authority to do so.
Meanwhile, Resident Representative of the Foundation in Nigeria, Hildegard Behrendt-Kigozi, has called on Nigerians to avoid polarisation despite the biting security challenges the country faces at the moment.
Other participnats at the roundtable also advised the media to avoid being drawn into the blame game trap by politicians, as politicians and political parties will employ them to denigrate others on the security lapses just to gain edge.
