by Emeka Ibemere
Last
week’s alleged attempted effort to bomb the nation’s famous airport, the
Murtala Mohammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja Lagos State, by an alleged
unscrupulous ‘lunatic’ has once again
exposed the porousness of the nation’s gateway.
Reports
claimed that a particular Boko Haram suspect was arrested at National Airport
Management Authority (NAMA) annex in Lagos and allegedly confessed that he was sent
along with other Boko Haram members to Lagos to bomb various parts of the city.
The
mentally disabled 22-year-old suspect was caught with canisters around his
neck. According to reports, he told airport security personnel that his two other colleagues were
assigned the task of bombing MMIA, as well as the densely populated Lagos
Island and Apapa areas of the state.
According
to the suspect, he and his other co-travellers in the evil assignment were
recruited from Niger Republic and were trained extensively before their
deployment.
He also
said the plot to bomb Lagos would not be simultaneously done. It would be
recalled that two months ago, the commercial nerve of Lagos, Apapa witnessed a
twin bomb blasts that took more than five persons including the suicide bomber.
The bomber would have been successful but for the inability of the explosives
to detonate when they were supposed to.
It was
understand by our correspondent that the suspect was arrested because he was
battling to detonate the devices but ran into difficulties doing that. It was
when he raced to a hidden place to check what went wrong and perhaps re-fixes
it that he was arrested by security operatives attached to NAMA.
But the
police said that the suspected explosive device found on the suspect would be
re-examined and confirmed later, adding that it would be hasty to describe it
as an explosive.
Reacting
to the incident, the General Manager, Public Affairs of NAMA, Supo Atobatele,
said the suspect was within the vicinity of the airport making phone calls
along the Airport Road when the agency’s security personnel accosted him.
“The
attention of NAMA has been drawn to insinuations that a suspected suicide
bomber was arrested at one of the agency’s facilities at the Murtala Muhammed
International Airport, Lagos, on Monday”, he stated.
“The
basic truth however is that the said suspect was on the ground making phone
calls along the Airport Road close to CENTREX, an annex office of NAMA when the
agency’s security personnel accosted him. His incoherent explanation exposed
him to the security personnel who later found on him some devices suspected to
be explosives. He was subsequently handed over to the Airport Police Command
for further investigation”.
The
Managing Director, Ibrahim Abdulsalam, in a reaction, commended the security
personnel for their vigilance and prompt arrest of the suspect.
However,
NAMA official alleged that the suspect was on a mission and was sent by
somebody, dismissing the initial statement from the police that he was a lunatic.
Reacting
to the attempt, Charles Anike explained that the recent attempt to bomb the
MMIA airport in Lagos State was an indication that Boko Haram war against
Nigeria is spreading like Ebola and not over. He said that no place should be
ruled out of their onslaught and that security bar should be raised higher than
what is was before now.
“Nigerians
and especially security operatives should not rest in their oars at all, more
so, when members of the evil gang have infiltrated the entire society. We must
at this point be vigilant and as well, be suspicious of everybody and every
movement irrespective of status”, he stated further.
“This is
the time that we need the community policing. Security officers should channel
their efforts at enlightening the citizens on security awareness. Prevention
they say is better than cure. It is very disturbing when we think about the
poor and total lack of enlightenment of the public by relevant authorities.
Many lives are being wasted in Nigeria, largely due to lack of information”.
Anike
decried that attitude of Nigerian security operatives of being reactive in
their operations instead of being proactive. He wondered how the bomber managed
to smuggle himself to the airport without any officials noticing him on time until
when his bomb disappointed him.
Speaking
on his capacity as social commentator and the Eastern Union’s national
president, a social -political organisation, Anike blamed the National
Orientation Agency, NOA, in failing in their responsibility in carrying out
serious awareness campaign and failure in sensitizing Nigerians especially the
youths on terrorism and other criminality. He disclosed that NOA appears only
to exist in name and tasked the agency to be more brutal in preaching against
terrorism.
“All the
crimes and terrorism in Nigeria is due to lack of adequate enlightenment and
orientation programmes for the public, especially the youths. We therefore,
call on both the federal and state governments to show interest and invest in
enlightenment and social mobilization which will go a long a way to compliment
other government efforts to fight crime and terrorism”, he said.
“President
Jonathan should look seriously into the NOA and charge them to re-orientate the
public on Boko Haram and win the war of terrorism and criminality. People
shouldn’t be living in ignorance as that has caused loss of lives of the many
promising citizens. We are yet to secure the release of the Chibok girls and
more are being taken. It’s high time to empower the young and old with adequate
information on security”.
The Group
said they advocate that a subject on security tips should be introduce into the
school curriculum as it would be good for the government to invest little out
of the enormous money they are pumping on military and security awareness
campaign and on national orientation.
“Its time
for us to come to terms to the fact that our modern society have derailed and
lost much of our values, respects and cultural heritage. Young people no longer
have good characters as elders to look up to as role models are scarce”. Hard
work and genuine achievements no longer openly rewarded. Hence corruption and
other vices have eaten deep into the fabrics of our society and successive
governments have always employed the same medications of cutting the stems
rather than uprooting the tap roots of the decadence”.
“This
government must include in its transformation agenda, effective and robust
national orientation plan, which is more result oriented because it is only mad
man that continue to do the same thing the same way and expect different
results”, he quipped.
Investigations
at the airport shows that manual security checking is still being used at the
MMIA as the nation’s airports are not secure.
“No
cameras at all corners. No monitoring at the gates except for collecting gate
fees. They will not do anything until an attempt is made to bomb the airport,
then they will run helter skelter for some make shift security checks. Let's
say that the security at our airports is at 10% maximum. Nigeria should not
wait for the airport to be bombed before they do the right thing”, a man who
identified his name as simply Nze, said in his reaction to the attempted attack
Philip
Onyemauche Mbonu also added the fact that our airports are porous without
security and called the airport management to be more proactive than reactive.
“We waited for the Ebola to take us by surprise before putting preventive
measures in place. There should be more efforts to increased vigilance as we
can now see the Boko Haram's routes: using women or girls, children, mad men or
women and now the physically challenged”, he added. “They can even plant it on
animals and set them to explode. Same vigilance should be applied in all
facilities all over Nigeria not only airports, sea ports and other public
places.CCTV must be introduced and undercover agencies used to check this
evil”.
Dr. CJ.
E. Ozoeneh, Chief Security Consultant, Cyber Lions Security, LLC. USA while reacting on social media, called on the security
apparatus of the country to try and have information about terrorism. “Understanding the sophistication
of terrorism and terror networks is a major concern in the security operation
in today's world. For us in Nigeria, is an emerging phase of life, clouded by
lack of understanding and knowledge of what to look for in a potential
terrorist or terrorists”, he disclosed.
“The Nigerian government must make the issue
of terrorism a national emergency and highest priority, just as they are
educating the mass of Ebola epidemic, they should make the same efforts to
alert the masses of the urgent need for all Nigerians to understand the
consequences of a Nation that lives with terror”.
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