The Federal Government on Friday urged delegates due for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Abjua next week “not to let terror win” by staying away after a second bombing in the capital in less than three weeks.
A suspected car bomb killed 19 people and wounded 34 on Thursday night in the suburb of Nyanya, about eight km from the Abuja city centre and next to the bus station where a rush hour bomb attack killed 75 people on April 14.
The bombs, along with the abduction of 200 girls from a secondary school in the northeastern village of Chibok near the Cameroon border, threaten to overshadow the WEF conference’s emphasis on Africa’s positive growth story.
The girls, who were taking exams, were taken away on trucks on the same day as the bus station bombing. Both attacks showed the powerlessness of Nigerian security forces to protect civilians against the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s government will mount a huge security operation to protect the WEF scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday.
A regional replica of the Davos, Switzerland, event, it will bring together international leaders, policy-makers, entrepreneurs and philanthropists.
“We want to state categorically that the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan administration will not be diverted nor will it give in to these nefarious acts of terrorism,” Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement on Friday.
She said that “The government has taken the strongest measures to ensure a safe forum. We ask participants not to let terror win.”
Despite the repeated assurances on security, there were signs not all delegates were convinced that Nigerian authorities could keep the capital safe during the event.
Fernando de Sousa, General Manager of Microsoft Africa Initiatives, canceled his trip “for security reasons following the bombings in Abuja”, a PR company representing the firm said.
The Islamists, who want to install a medieval Islamic kingdom in Nigeria, claimed the previous bombing and authorities blame them for the second one and the abductions.
Interior Minister Abba Moro told Reuters that security in Abuja city center would make it very difficult for any insurgents to find their way in.
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