By Tony Edike
ENUGU – ABOUT 50 nursery school children escaped death Friday when an explosive suspected to be rocket propelled bomb was discovered in a pit within a school premises in Enugu.

Panic gripped residents of the area following the discovery of the unexploded explosive which may have been dropped in the area during the Civil War.

The school located in the premises of Our Saviour Anglican Church, One Day Road Awkunanaw, in the metropolitan Enugu South local government area was in session when workmen digging a soak-away pit discovered the explosive.

The children were immediately evacuated, while the resident priest, Rev. Chukwudi Eneasato contacted security agencies including the police and the State Security Services (SSS) informing them of the strange discovery.

The Divisional Police Officer for Awkunanaw Division, CSP Bassey Ewa who rushed to the scene with his men had on sighting the explosive cordoned off the area and invited the anti-bomb squad of the State Police Command to recover the object, while men of the SSS carried out preliminary investigation at the scene.

The anti-bomb squad who arrived the scene few hours later, moved close to the pit where the bomb was discovered and scanned the entire premises before carting away the explosive which was said to be deadly.

The Zonal Commander of the Police anti-bomb squad who led the operation, ASP Dappa Sogbere told reporters at the scene that the object was recovered as an ordinance, noting that it would be taken for analysis.

“For now, the much I can say is that what we have is an ordinance which will betaken for laboratory analysis after which the Commissioner of Police will make the finding public,” Sogbere noted.

Also speaking, the Arch-Deacon, Achara Layout Arch-Deaconry which controls Our Saviour Anglican Parish, the Venerable Honest Nwosu described the discovery of the explosive as divine.

He however allayed fears that the object may have been planted by unknown persons saying that “from what I’ve observed, this object may have been buried there since after the civil war long before we acquired this land to site our church here but all the same, let’s allow the police to do their work and tell us their findings”.