By Evelyn Usman and Ifeanyi Okolie
Ikeja area of Lagos State, was, yesterday, thrown into panic following an alleged discovery of substance suspected to a bomb, inside one of the offices in Ikeja Local Government Secretariat on Obafemi Awolowo Road.
Government workers and those who came for transactions rushed out of the building with some car owners abandoning their vehicles as they fled for their lives.
A multiple auto crash was also averted as motorists and commercial motorcyclists plying the route hurriedly made u-turn. Traders were not left out as they hurriedly locked up their shops and vacated the area.
It was gathered that the combustive substance, which was planted in one of the buildings was connected to an air-conditioner behind the council’s doctor’s office.
Vanguard gathered that one of the workers, who had wanted to put on the air- conditioner, discovered the substance. It was alleged that had the air-conditioner been put on, the substance would have exploded.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Yakubu Alkali, who was at the time at a security meeting with senior officers, reportedly drafted some policemen to the scene.
Policemen from the Bomb Disposal Unit, it was gathered, promptly arrived the council secretariat and directed that all vehicles be removed from the premises, as they searched for the substance, which they later discovered.
The Council Secretary, Mr Ayodele, told Vanguard that the policemen from bomb squad promised to take the substance to the laboratory to ascertain whether it was actually explosive.
Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Samuel Jinadu, who was also at the scene, said the substance was not an explosive, though he did not say what exactly it was.
Despite assurance by the police that substance was not bomb, none of the council workers dared returned to the secretariat.
Source: Vanguard
