By Jimitota Onoyume, Port Harcourt
LITTLE Miss Patience Abey (not her real name) of  State School, Okoronu Odo on Ikwerre Road in Obio Akpor local government area of Rivers State said they were in  classroom at about 10.30 a.m. on Thursday when they heard a deafening sound.

Immediately, the pupils and teachers scampered for safety. According to her, nobody knew where it came from, but, somehow, they felt it was from the ever busy Ikwerre Road or Rumuokoro Roundabout which is barely two hundred meters from the school.

The little girl, who was clutching her mother’s skirt while talking to Sunday Vanguard, had apparently not recovered from the shock created by the bang. She was not alone in this mood when an 18-seater Toyota Hiace bus painted in Rivers State commercial bus colours exploded at the Rumukoro Roundabout that Thursday morning, leaving one dead and about two others injured.

A trader, who simply identified himself as Charles, said he was in front of his shop, about fifty meters from the scene of the explosion, when he heard a bang. He likened it to the deflating sound from a trailer’s tyre.  His first instinct, which, he said, he obeyed,  was to run  for cover before even trying to know where the sound came from.

*The wreckage of the ill-fated bus

And from a distance of about two hundred meters, Charles said he looked at the direction of Rumuokoro Roundabout, all he saw was a bus painted in the state’s sky blue and deep white commercial vehicle colors in flames.  When he drew closer, he met a grizzly sight, this time the lifeless body of a youth he identified as a familiar face in the neighborhood..

Another lady said she heard the bang at almost a kilometer away and, when she was told it was a blast at Rumuokoro Roundabout, she had to rush to pick her three kids from State School, Okoronu Odo. The blast created panic within the Hausa community in the state. For fear of attack, many of them hurriedly closed shop in the area.

Until the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Mohammed Indabawa, dispelled the speculation that the explosion was an act of terrorism, the predominant understanding of the ugly development by eye witnesses was that the dreaded Islamist group, Boko Haram, had extended its bombings and other acts of terrorism to the state and the South South  home region of President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Commissioner of Police, who spoke to journalists  at the scene of the incident, blamed robbers for the blast. According to him, they were possibly on a mission with dynamites in their vehicle and a cache of ammunition when suddenly the explosives went off.  To strengthen the foregoing, he said some AK 47 rifles were among items recovered from the exploded bus.

His words, “My Divisional Police Officer, DPO, called me that there was an explosion in a bus, that one body was lying lifeless on the ground. I came, the initial report was that it was an explosion, but we suspect they were robbers going for operation.

We have seen a cache of arms and ammunition in the vehicle. I can’t quantify now but we have seen about four rifles. But when the bomb disposal unit gets through, they will come up with more information. I don’t know where the bus was going but I suspect they were armed robbers.

The one that died was in the car”.

He was however emphatic that the blast did not come from a bomb.  He maintained that if it had been a bomb, some of those around when the incident occurred and buildings close to the scene of the blast would have been affected.

NOT TERRORISM

His explanation may have erased initial fears in the minds of many that it was a bomb blast, but the angle that those behind it were probably robbers on a mission did not sink, because he could not account for what triggered off the blast in the vehicle.

Governor  Chibuike Amaechi made efforts  to close  the gap in the police commissioner’s account  when he said the dynamites  in the vehicle might have been triggered off by flames from cigarettes the robbers were smoking in the bus. The governor,  who fielded questions from newsmen at the scene of the blast that same day,  aligned with the police commissioner that the blast was not another act of terrorism in the country. Amaechi  said those in the vehicle were probably robbers on a mission, adding that they wanted to use the dynamites in the vehicle    to blow up bullet proof doors in banks.

“All of you can act as eyewitnesses that what you have here is not a bomb explosion, what you have here is an attempt by three men to go and rob; we don’t know where they were heading to, where they were going to rob but in their vehicle they had an explosive device, a dynamite.

“We suspect they must be smoking to have ignited the dynamite and the Commissioner of Police confirmed that there was even a lady who was selling by the side of the road and the lady was not even affected; no building was affected.  There is no crater here to show that there was a bomb device; there is no crater, no damage on the road, just the bus”, he said.

“Because of the bullet proof doors you have in banks, some of them (robbers) carry dynamites if they want to rob banks.  So, obviously you can see that it is not a bomb device, it was just a mere explosive”.

“That is why I have to come here myself to confirm to the world and confirm to Rivers people that the security system in Rivers State is working, the Commissioner of Police and all others are at alert and we will not allow any terrorist action in Rivers State”.

Eyewitnesses, who spoke to Sunday  Vanguard, however, were convinced it was another terrorist act from the dreaded Boko Haram.  Some of them said the youth who lost his life was not in the vehicle, he only came to assist in pushing the vehicle to  roll it back to life.

One of the eyewitnesses, Emma Okon, said he saw when they were pushing the bus from the roundabout to the point where it exploded. According to him, two men, dressed  in  shirts and trousers, holding chaplets, came down from the bus.  He said they even beckoned at him to assist, but he did not because he had his eyes on his phone that a phone repairer was working on.

He said they  bought Kunu, local pap.  Okon said minutes after they bought  the Kunu, the two guys disappeared and, before anybody could ask for there whereabouts, the bus went  up in flames. Okon believed it was a terrorist act  and those the blast consumed were not the occupants of the vehicle.

Another eye witness confirmed that the young man consumed by the blast merely came  to assist to push the vehicle. He gave the name of the deceased as Edet Akpan, from Akwa Ibom State.  He could not say if the other two that reportedly sustained injuries also came to assist.

A third source believed the deceased was the driver of the bus. According to him, the bus was heading to Eleme, but  the driver did not know the two passengers in his vehicle had explosives and guns in their luggage. This source, who did not want her name mentioned, said she saw when they were pushing the vehicle but did not give the action any special attention because such was a regular feature on the road.

“I think, at a time, somebody raised the alarm that smoke was coming from somewhere in the bus, so the guy who died was probably trying to find a solution when the blast went off”.

Meanwhile, Rivers State  chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, in a statement  by its publicity secretary, Mr Jeery Needam, has  called on the federal and state governments across the country to evolve measures to check rising terrorist attacks in the country.

While condemning the blast, the party said the ugly development had again shown how insecure the country was. He called on the federal and state governments to ensure votes for security were properly channeled to arrest the situation.