Kogi confirms explosion during Buhari’s visit, blames ‘misguided politicians’

The Kogi government says “enemies of progress” and “misguided politicians” are responsible for the explosion which occurred in the state on Thursday.

TheCable had reported how an explosion rocked a community in Okene LGA of the state on Thursday morning.

The incident took place at a mosque near the palace of Ado Ibrahim, the paramount ruler of Ebiraland.

The blast occurred while President Muhammadu Buhari was in the area to inaugurate projects completed by the state government.

Four persons were said to have been killed in the incident while two others sustained injuries.

Kingsley Fanwo, the Kogi commissioner for information, had initially debunked reports of an explosion, saying it was a “mere transformer spark which injured one person”.

The information commissioner would later delete his tweets on the incident.

FIRST OFFICIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT

In the first official acknowledgement of the explosion, Jerry Omodara, security adviser to Yahaya Bello, Kogi governor, said there was prior intelligence of the incident.

He said it was for this reason that “we had enough deployment of security personnel across the state to be able to frustrate their efforts”.

“Unfortunately, in spite of that, the enemies of progress still tried to distract President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Kogi by setting that explosion,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“All the same, the deployment and tight security around didn’t allow them to achieve their aim.

“This government can authoritatively say that the cause of the blast was solely the act of misguided politicians and people who don’t want anything good for their state.

“We are aware of some disgruntled politicians celebrating the sad incident that happened today in Okene, where some innocent people lost their lives.

“As a government, we believe that issues of security must concern everyone, and until we all put our hands on deck, it will affect us in one way or the other.

“The people who died today are some persons’ children, brothers or relations, so it must concern all of us.

“But for some politicians to celebrate the blast is very unfortunate and not the kind of politics that can move us forward in this state and the nation as a whole.”

‘BUHARI’S VISIT WAS SUCCESSFUL DESPITE BLAST’

The security adviser noted that “the visit of our president, Muhammadu Buhari, was very successful” in spite of the incident.

Omodara said the “enemies of the state” will continue to fail in their antics to “ensure that this government doesn’t succeed in moving Kogi forward”.

“Let it be a sound of warning to the disgruntled politicians that Kogi will continue to be on top in area of security in this country as far as Bello’s administration is concerned,” he said.

“His (Bello) interest is to have peace in Kogi and nothing can distract him from that. We are suspecting the man that perished in the car as the one who brought the bomb or explosive to disrupt the programme for today.

“Already samples have been taken both human and vehicle parts, and the police and other security agencies investigating the incident will determine what exactly happened.

“The police and other security agencies will definitely come up with their reports for the public to know. We are not resting on our oars until the culprits are caught and brought to book.

“As a government, we sympathise and condole those families that lost their loved ones to the explosion of today, Thursday.”