Scores of citizens have been killed just within one week since General Muhammadu Buhari assumed office as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Some suspected Boko Haram loyalists attacked Yola and Borno States on Thursday, June 4, 2015 and killed scores of residents.
The death toll from the twin blast in the two states has already risen to 35 as at Friday, June 5, 2015.
It would be recalled that the president vowed both during campaigns and inauguration that he would curb the activities of the Islamists sect as soon as he assumes office.
The immediate past president Goodluck Jonathan was ridiculed and criticized for his supposed inability to crush the sect but the spate of the bombings through Buhari’s first week in office shows the severity of the challenge.
Rescue officials in Yola, Adamawa State’s capital said 31 persons had been confirmed dead in the explosion that ripped through a market on Thursday, June 4, 2015 while about 38 sustained varying degrees of injuries.
Speaking to AFP, the state coordinator of National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Sa’ad Bello said, “So far, we have 31 dead victims and 38 people in hospital receiving treatment.”
Before the attack in Yola, the place was ranked among the safe states in the north eastern part of the nation with no confirmed record of blasts from the insurgents in several years.
Shortly after the blast in Yola, a suspected suicide bombing took place in Maiduguri, Borno state capital after a truck conveying firewood rammed into a checkpoint outside a military barracks.
No fewer than four persons were killed from the Maiduguri blast that occurred outside the Maimalari Barracks at about 5pm on the fateful day.
In the face of the attacks, the president urged closer regional security cooperation and demanded more action from a multi-national force battling the insurgents on the frontline.
The sect released a new video recently after several months and first under their new name “Islamic State in West Africa” in which their leader, Abubakar Shekau boasted that they are uncountable in Sambisa forest located in Borno.
Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, it is believed to have come from the Boko Haram extremists who have usually attack crowded markets and places.
Meanwhile, Buhari has ordered the military’s command centre be moved from the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, to Maiduguri, Borno State’s capital.
Borno State has been regarded as the stronghold of the insurgents since 2002 who have ravaged the state causing residents to desert the state in order to evade their numerous attacks.
About 18 persons were left dead from two rocket attacks in the city coupled with another explosion opposite a military facility on Wednesday, June 3, 2015.
Two other suicide bomb attacks that happened at a mosque on Saturday, May 30, 2015 and at a cattle market on Tuesday, June 2, 2015 left 26 and 13 persons dead respectively.
By implication, calculations have put the figure of dead victims between Friday, May 29, 2015 and Friday, June 5, 2015 at 82.
