A suicide bomb attack targeted at the convoy of the Taraba State Commissioner of Police, Mamman Sule, on Monday led to the killing of 10 persons and the destruction of a portion of the Taraba State Ministry of Finance in the state capital, Jalingo, and a nearby market.
It also consumed valuable documents, vehicles and property.
The News Agency of Nigeria quotes the spokesman for the state police command, Ibiang Mbasike, as saying that explosives were hauled at the convoy by a suicide bomber riding on a motorcycle at about 8.45a.m when workers were resuming for work after the weekend break.
The suicide bomber was holding plastic military explosives before the attack.
Sule escaped unhurt but three police officers and the two suspected suicide bombers were among the 10 persons killed while a dozen others were injured.
One of the explosives hit the rider leading the police commissioner’s convoy, causing him to lose his sight.
The police headquarters in Taraba is 40 metres away from the main entrance to the finance ministry. The ministry’s premises forms part of the entrance into the building leading to the police commissioner’s office.
“The police commissioner usually has to go through the Ministry of Finance to enter his office.
“He was passing by that usual route when the explosives were thrown. So the Police Commissioner’s convoy was clearly the target,” a top police source, who preferred anonymity, told NAN.
The attack on Sule’s convoy was a reprisal for his alleged role in the killing of several Boko Haram members when he was the CP in Yobe State. Mamman had reportedly been on the hit list of the sect.
More details later.
