The United Nations and the United States of America, on Sunday, condemned Saturday bomb attacks in Tashan Mararaba, Gwoza town, Borno State, claiming the lives of at least 18 persons.
The attacks, carried out by suspected female suicide bombers, struck a wedding, a hospital, and a funeral in Gwoza, a town near the border with Cameroon.
According to the Borno State Police Command spokesman, Nahum Daso, on Sunday, three blasts took place on Saturday in Gwoza.
President Bola Tinubu, in a statement on Sunday by the Presidency, said his administration would redouble its efforts “to ensure that those who trouble the nation, dispatching precious lives, and disrupting law and order are completely removed.”
A security analyst and counter-insurgency expert, Zagazola Makama, said that the bomber, later identified as a young lady in her early twenties, detonated her explosive device in the middle of the gathering, causing chaos and destruction.
Intelligence sources told Makama that the victims, who were all civilians, were returning from a wedding celebration when the attack occurred near a busy motorpark.
Emergency services rushed to the scene to rescue those injured and transport them to the hospitals in Gwoza.
Saturday’s bomb attack is the first in years since Boko Haram began bombing raids across the country in 2009.
Notable among such raids was the bombing of the United Nations building in 2010 and the busy Nyanya motor park both in Abuja, in 2014.
President Tinubu strongly condemned the bomb attacks, describing them as “desperate acts of terror and a clear manifestation of the pressure mounted against terrorists and the success achieved in degrading their capacity to launch offensives.”
According to a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, Tinubu said the purveyors of wanton violence “shall have a certain encounter with justice.”
He said the “cowardly attacks” were an isolated episode vowing that his government “will not allow the nation to slither into an era of fear, tears, sorrow, and blood.”
In the statement titled, ‘President Tinubu condemns bomb attacks in Borno State, says purveyors of terror will pay a heavy price,’ Tinubu said his administration was taking necessary measures to secure citizens.
He condoled with the victims of the attacks, the families of the deceased, as well as the government and people of Borno State.
