buhari's comment

The former leader says terrorism is not based on religion or ethnicity Former Head of State, and leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari, has given more insight into how he managed to escape Wednesday’s bomb attack in Kaduna that targeted him. Speaking to Governor Mukhtar Yero of Kaduna State who visited him Thursday, Mr. Buhari said despite being close to the centre of a huge blast that police say killed at least 15 people, he suffered no “scratch” although he had bloodstain. The attack occurred near the busy Kawo market in Kaduna. A bomb-laden car rammed into the ex- leader’s convoy after trailing it for a distance, and unsuccessfully trying to overtake the escort vehicle to reach Mr. Buhari’s armoured SUV. “When I came out of the car, there was blood on my dress, I don’t know how it came about because I don’t have even a single scratch myself,” he said. “I saw dead bodies thrown all over the place. The security tried to move me to the other side because they were thinking maybe there is a another bomb and we just got one of the vehicles passing which picked me and brought me back home.” Some reports say as much as 50 died in the attack. Addressing Mr. Yero, the APC leader said the insurgency ravaging Nigeria is neither caused by religion nor ethnicity. “This killings is neither ethnic nor religious,” he said. “So when they kill children in schools in the North East, when they kill students teachers, when they bomb churches, when they bomb mosque, when they the bomb motor park, when they bomb the market, where is religion there, where is ethnicity? This is terrorism and I hope the government will come to grip with it.” Mr. Buhari said Nigeria can overcome terrorism. “Nigeria is capable of dealing with this. We have dealt with a war scene in a civil war. For 30 months, we fought and we kept Nigeria one and God willing. We are going to keep Nigeria one,” he said. “I hope that both the law enforcement agencies and you the chief executives of the state (referring to Governor Yero) will succeed in bringing lasting peace and security throughout the country and may God help us,” the former head of state said. Governor Yero said the bomb attacks will not happen again. “Unfortunately, because of the crowded town that we had yesterday, this things happened. We know that, by the grace of God, this thing will never happen again. We continue to do our best and to also continue to pray to almighty Allah. We are grateful to God for what he has done to us,” he said. “This is very unfortunate and it is not supposed to be so, so we totally condemn this act and will like to also call on people to condemn it and at the same time to look around and ensure what is always around which the people of Kaduna state have always been.”