Sources further confirmed that another eleven persons were believed to be unconscious as a result of the explosion, which occurred few metres away from the Nyanya Motor Park where a similar blast killed over 70 persons on April 14.

In a joint statement by Emmanuel Okeh, the Head of Public Relations of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NCSDC, and Manzo Ezekiel, the Press Officer of National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, the agencies said that those injured are receiving treatment in different hospitals in Abuja.

“While security agencies have condoned the area of an explosion this evening in Nyanya Abuja, response agencies have moved injured victims to hospitals and at least nine lifeless bodies have been deposited in the mortuary while 11 unconscious victims are receiving medical attention in different hospitals in Abuja.

“Other injured victims too are being attended to. The public are urged to cooperate with security agencies and avoid rushing to the scene to guard against hampering the efforts of the various agencies working together to ensure public safety,” the statement claimed.

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Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 7, Suleiman Abba, who made the disclosure in a briefing, noted however that no arrest has yet been made, saying “but I assure the public that with the links we have, investigation will lead us to the culprits and they will be arrested.”

Expressing the condolences of the Police to the families of victims of the attack, Abba said that “We were pained by that incident. Even at that, we have made efforts to re strategise and come out with better approaches towards ensuring that such occurrence did not happen again.”

Explaining that the bloody incident could have been avoided, the AIG said that “The logistics and arrangement to prevent that vehicle from gaining access to the motor park premises was there.

“The park was very well fenced, supported by a strong gate for control and checking of vehicular movement into and out of the park. But the utilisation by the operators was poor.”

AIG Abba said that “After the incident, the IGP, Mohammed Abubakar set up a high-powered team of experienced and highly trained investigators to unravel those behind the dastardly act. The team is made up of Force Criminal Investigaion department and investigators from the FCT Command.

“However, let me inform you that right from the crime scene, investigations has already commenced as experts of the Explosive Ordinance department, EOD, including other specialised departments collated all materials that could possibly lead to unravelling the crime.

“Other investigators of other security agencies scooped items that could lead to getting the perpetrators too.”

In a response to allegations that the majority of the closed-circuit television, CCTV, cameras in the FCT are not working, the AIG said that he recently “Took student of the National Defence College on study tour to the control centre and we saw its workability.

“The only challenge is that the installation processes have not been completed. However, let me say that nowhere in the world are installations of CCTV cameras left in the hands of government alone.”

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The condemnation is contained in a statement issued by Femi Abbas, Chairman, NSCIA Media Committee and made available to newsmen on Tuesday in Ibadan.

The council condoled with families of the victims of the blast and other Nigerians who were directly or indirectly affected by the tragedy.

It prayed Almighty Allah to spare the country from calamity and protect innocent Nigerians even as it urged the Federal Government to take urgent steps to prevent a recurrence of such ugly incident.

It also urged the government to investigate the cause of the current security challenges facing the country and to take urgent measures to address them.

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The police spokesperson, Frank Mba, who confirmed this to journalists in Abuja said that “So far, we have a total of 71 persons dead and 124 others injured and they are all, receiving treatments at various hospitals in and around FCT metropolis.”

However, independent estimates by witnesses and body count by our correspondent at the scene indicate the casualty figure may go up as about 200 people are believed to have died from the blast.

Mba disclosed that those injured are currently receiving treatment at various hospitals around the Nigerian capital and said that a total 16 luxurious buses were torched, while 24 others mainly belonging to individuals suffered damages in the blast.

He disclosed that security agencies were working with hospitals to create information centers for relatives to assist them in getting information on their loved ones.

“We promised you earlier on that we will continue to update you and it in that spirit that I want to update you as regards the casualty figures.

“In order to help families of the bereaved, the security agencies are working with hospitals encouraging most of the hospitals to open information centers that will help relatives, friends to get relevant information from those hospitals where the dead bodies are deposited and others receiving treatments,” he said.

Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan during his visit to the scene of the blast and the hospital appealed to the media to assist government in enlightening the public on security consciousness.

Jonathan who was close to tears as he spoke at the blast site harped on the need for extra vigilance and for people to report suspicious movements in any part of the country to security agencies.

“You can see that I am here with Senate President, Senator David Mark and the Chairman of PDP, Chief of Defence, service chiefs, National Security Adviser, and that the security agencies are also doing their best to handle the situation,” Jonathan said.

“Let us first express our collective condolence to the family of those who lost their lives and also commend the security agencies for their quick response.

“It is not the number, let me appeal to our country men and women, for them to continue to work, very hard on this issue of Boko Haram,” he added.

The president said government will do everything necessary to ensure that the country moves forward despite the activities of those who preferred to move the country backwards.

“We shall get over it. We want to appeal to our media to begin to come up with enlightenment programme for our people, to make citizens very aware of suspicious movement so that they can be reported promptly to security agencies,” he said.

“Let us become more observant and monitor the movement of people so that we can reduce. We will do our best, the security agencies will continue to work hard to ensure that we get over this issue of Boko Haram.”

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