The Borno State deputy governor, Alhaji Zannah Mustapha, has related how he and the foremost traditional ruler in the state narrowly escaped death in a suicide bomb attack yesterday afternoon in Maiduguri, the state capital.

Alhaji Mustapha was standing next to the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Umar Garba el-Kanemi, when the bomber, believed to be about 15 years old, approached and donated a bomb shortly after prayers at the mosque near the Shehu’s palace.

“It was God that saved me and the Shehu, otherwise we would have been dead by now,” the deputy governor told the French news agency AFP. “I heard a loud blast and it dawned on me that the young man had detonated a bomb. Luckily neither me nor the Shehu was injured, but our robes were splattered with human flesh and blood,” he added.

The bomber and five others died in the attack which bore the signature of the Boko Haram terrorist group that has made large swathes of northern Nigeria virtually ungovernable. Boko Haram’s main targets are Christians and government security personnel, but the group occasionally also attacks Muslim targets.

Photo Caption
Borno State deputy governor, Alhaji Zannah Mustapha