Maiduguri blast victim says

My N2,000 orange business nearly cost me my life

… As two-month-old baby survives explosion

“Nothing can be more traumatising to one’s family than losing one’s life over just a N2, 000 business.” These were the words of Mallam Abdulazeez, an orange seller and one of the victims of the recent multiple explosions in Maiduguri, Borno State.

Abdulazeez spoke on his hospital bed at the Orthopaedic ward of a public hospital in the capital.

Recalling his activities before a deafening sound enveloped the Baga market, located in the western axis of the city, the 20-year-old Abdulazeez said he had a premonition of an impending tragedy but never thought it was going to be a bomb blast where he would also be a victim.

“I was having some strange feeling before the incident. I can’t even explain how I felt but I know I was not that happy, especially before midday. Then suddenly, the sound came. I just found myself in the hospital and I would have died by now if not for God’s sake,” he told the reporter.

A suspected suicide bomber had detonated explosive devices near the fish market unit of the Baga market at about 12 noon on Saturday, March 7, killing scores of people, mostly traders and passers-by.

Near the market is also a very busy and usually crowed motor park, the Tarson Baga, which served travellers to the northern part of Borno, including Baga (Kukawa), Monguno, Mongumeri, and Gubio local governments as well as the neighbouring country of Niger Republic. In the upper part of the market area is also a wood market called Timber Shed, about 300 metres away. In fact, the entire Baga road in Maiduguri stretching about three kilometres is a commercially busy area. The area has witnessed a few blasts, especially in early 2013 when Boko Haram held sway in the capital.

One Abubakar Damasak, who also suffered the same fate like Abdulazeez, sustained a serious injury on his left hand, a nurse at the State Specialist Hospital, Maiduguri, told the reporter. Abubakar could hardly utter a word when the reporter approached him on his hospital bed. The pathetic sight of a teenager, writhing in pain caught the our attention. Most parts of his body were dotted with injuries. The boy, an orphan, was said to have lost his father four years back.

Another victim, a woman in her early 20s, said she was at the market with her two-month-old baby on her back to buy ingredients worth N200 when the first blast occurred.

“I went to the Baga market to buy a few things and I just heard the sound and saw blood on my two legs. My baby also fell off but people quickly picked her,” she told the state governor, Kashim Shettima, during his visit to the victims at the State Specialist Hospital, Maiduguri, the day after the incident.

An elderly man, Alhaji Kadau Mohammed, who was caught by the third blast at an auto mart near the Borno Transport Corporation terminus, Borno Express, said he would continue to be grateful to God for what he called his miraculous survival.

“We were about 12 people at the spot of the bomb blast and only two of us survived miraculously,” he said. He said he was surprised to see himself alive when some who were few meters away from the scene could not make it. “We pray this problem of insecurity and insurgency would end soon because we’ve suffered enough,” he said.

Chief Medical Director of Borno Hospital and Management Board, Dr. Salisu Kwaya Bura, while briefing Governor Shettima on the condition of the victims, said 68 patients were received at the hospitals, including the State Specialist Hospital, Umaru Shehu Hospital and Mamman Shuwa Memorial. He said 12 of the victims were critically injured and had been referred to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) for further treatment. He disclosed that most of the victims in the surgical units sustained multiple fractures.

Governor Shettima, who described the bombers as lunatics, said the insurgents had always targeted the vulnerable ones in the society.

“For God’s sake, these are orange sellers, tomatoes sellers and petty traders, all poor people whose capital is not more than N10,000. It is very sad but we pray for God’s intervention,” he stated. He promised that government would assist them to go back to their means of livelihood even as he gave each of the victims some undisclosed amount of money for their other needs. He said all medical expenses would be shouldered by the state government while the victims would also enjoy the free feeding system at the government hospitals.

He also told journalists after rounding off his sympathy visits to all the hospitals that government would continue to support the military and the youth vigilante, the Civilian JTF, to end the Boko Haram insurgency in the state, noting that the insecurity had taken a toll on the socio-economic life of the state.

Life has, however, returned to the city and even the scenes of the blasts, leaving the victims and relations of the deceased to count their losses.