'How I located my 5-month pregnant wife in mortuary' - Abuja Bomb Victim

“My wife left home 10 minutes before the bomb blast for Area 1, Garki, to get some items for my younger brother’s wedding coming up this weekend.

“Immediately I heard the explosion, I knew I was in trouble because the bus station is not far from our house. I rushed down to the scene of the bomb blast but I could not find my wife.”

That was the gripping story of Alpha, a man who lost his five-month pregnant wife, Sefiya, to the bomb explosion that rocked the Nyanya bus park, Abuja, on Monday, which killed over 80 people and injured more than 100 others.

Alpha’s tale is one out of many such heart-rending stories that have trailed an event that has emerged about the most deadly terrorist attack on the Nigerian capital city in recent times.  

As victims of the bomb blast continue to count their losses and families mourn their dead, Alpha, on Thursday, recounted how he located the corpse of his wife, a mother of four, in a mortuary.

He told Saturday Tribune that immediately he heard of the blast in his home, which is just a few kilometres from the park, he had ominous feelings because Sefiya had just left home a few minutes earlier, to board a vehicle.

“Immediately I heard the noise, I knew I was in trouble because the bus station is not far from our house. I rushed down to the scene of the bomb blast but I could not find my wife. I rushed down to Nyanya hospital, she was not there either. I went to Asokoro District Hospital, Abuja Clinics, Garki Hospital, my wife was not there. At all these hospitals, they told me there was no female corpse.

“So, I came to the National Hospital and searched the mortuary, tray by tray, until I got to the last row and the last corpse. There laid the body of my wife with a pregnancy of five months. Her body was intact; no injury of any kind. I think she died from shock,” Alpha said.

‘We watched our 20-yr-old brother burnt to death’
On his own part, Mr Hamzar Umar told Saturday Tribune how he and other siblings watched their 20-year-old brother, Isa Nuhu, burn to death at the scene of the incident.

Nuhu was a recharge card seller at the park. He had just finished his secondary school and decided to help himself by selling recharge cards and repairing mobile phones at the park, pending when he would gain admission into a tertiary institution.

According to Umar, Nuhu left home that day at 6:00 a.m., which was his usual time of leaving for business. Nuhu’s brothers later found him burning.

Immediately the bomb exploded and his brothers rushed to the scene, his body was still on fire. One of his brothers attempted to rescue him (or what was left of him) but, according to Umar, he was stopped by security operatives who cordoned off the scene.

“Nuhu worked at that particular place the bomb blast happened. When the incident happened, one of his brothers rushed there and saw him on the ground, with one leg already burnt. But as the brother tried to quench the fire, the security man at the scene did not allow him.

“At the time his brother was trying to rescue him, he was already dying. But, you know, somebody can be unconscious for three days. He was 20 years old. He just finished secondary school from Kogi State, but lived with his brothers in Nyanya,” Umar said.

Other victims of the early Monday blast who are lucky to be alive also recounted their ordeal on their sickbeds at Asokoro and Maitama District hospitals in Abuja.

Even as many of them were seriously injured with some claiming to have lost everything, they still conceded that they had every reason to thank God.

Majority of them told Saturday Tribune that they would want the Federal Government to put certain security measures in place at motor parks and other public places within the Federal Capital Territory and its environs.

One of them, Udo Samson, a 22-year-old man from Enugu State, claimed that he saw a man carrying a polythene bag before the explosion, and thanked God for sparing him.

“We were on the queue to enter the bus, an urban mass transport, when the thing exploded. I noticed a man who was carrying a bag in his hand, a polythene bag. He was an average man (sic!), black. Nobody noticed, but I saw him.

“I was very close to the man. After me, there were about two persons before the man. But I thank God. The two people before me are dead now.

Immediately the thing fell me down (sic!), I managed to get up and (I) ran out of the place, but I fell down again and collapsed. One Igbo boy saw me and carried me, put me on a bench and poured water on me. I checked my phone and the phone was still on me. I called my brother and told him what happened. Before my brother came, they had put me in an ambulance,” he said.

Samson said he was a businessman’s apprentice at the popular Neighbourhood Market at Wuse Zone 3, where he sold musical equipment. He said he was also on a queue to board one of the high-capacity buses to Abuja City Centre when the bomb exploded.

“I saw the man carrying the bomb. I stood close to him. I thank God that I am alive. Other people around me died. After a while, I got up and ran away despite the whole bruises I sustained,” he said.

‘I was issuing tickets when bomb exploded’
Another victim, 22-year-old Blessing Agy, works with the Abuja Urban Mass Transport Company as a supervisor. She said, “I normally confirm all the tickets and sign before the buses take off. I was standing in front of the bus to sign when it happened.”

Asked what she would want the government to do, she said, “I have a diploma certificate, and I am from Benue State. I want government to do anything they can do to help. As I said, I was actually standing in front of a bus when this happened; and, you know, how much do I get as salary to take care of the situation I found myself? All the same, I thank God for being alive today. I am better than when I was brought in here.”

‘As I wanted to enter the bus, the bomb went off’
Another victim, Ebere Ibejim, said, “I sell petty things. I wanted to go and buy my goods. I just wanted to go and board a bus at the park. As I wanted to enter, the thing exploded and covered everybody. I lost everything with me – my handset, money and plenty things. I lost everything.

But I thank God for my life. I didn’t see anybody; the thing covered everybody, and I don’t know how God made us escape there. The thing just covered everybody. My children are outside. I want the government to help us.... Make they help us o, because I lost everything; all the money to train my children, but I thank God for my life.”

‘I just heard gbam and fell down’
Yet another victim, Saheed Ahinde from Kwara State, said: “I was going to Wuse. I was rushing to go and carry a motor there. I just heard gbum! And I fell down. I didn’t know how the thing happened.”

He said the park was too tight, and would want the government to build many small parks so that there would not be too many people and vehicles converging on a single location, especially during rush hours.

‘I was going to office when the explosion occurred’
One other survivor, Abdul Isiaka, an indigene of Kogi State, said he would be happy if he could be discharged from the Asokoro hospital. Isiaka, a welder who lives at Rutokoro, after Maraba, said he was on his way to his workplace at Jabi when the explosion occurred. He said the incident was like a dream to him.

“The whole thing was first, to me, like a dream. I stood in a queue waiting to board a bus when the explosion occurred. As I just heard the sound, the next thing was that everybody went down. Although I sustained injuries, after a while, I tried to move.

“I am not yet married. I have plans to marry after this year. My sister, Ladidi, and my brother, Iliasu, have been taking care of me since the incident. I dropped out of school about 10 years ago, in primary six, when my father lost his job. My father is an engineer. We are eight children from my mother and I am the fourth in the family. My fiancee already heard about what happened to me. She called and cried so much,” he said.

‘I was saved because I went to buy fuel’
Abba Mohammed was transferred from Gwarinpa hospital to Maitama hospital for specialist care. He could not talk when Saturday Tribune tried to speak with him. However, his brother, Yakubu Mohammed, said: “My brother, who is an okada rider, has been plying that route for the past seven years. The traffic officer gave them sign to pass and enter the park, but he was still on his motorcycle, trying to enter the park, when suddenly the bomb exploded.

“After the bomb exploded, it was the pieces of iron from the shattered vehicle that hit and injured his jaw, near the neck region. I am also doing okada business but that time, I had already dropped a passenger at the park and had gone to the filling station to buy fuel when I heard the explosion. I immediately left the filling station and came to the scene of the incident, and we saw people running around while others were burning, some already dead.

“While all this was going on, I never knew that my brother was among the victims. I then went home and was asking whether all of my brothers were back and I was told that this one was yet to come back. We began to search for him.

“He was able to drive the motorcycle himself to the Nyanya General Hospital and was bleeding profusely. The moment he entered the hospital premises, he was about to collapse when the hospital workers held him and gave him some treatment before they referred him to the Gwarinpa General Hospital. We had looked for him since morning up till 4pm before we discovered him here around 4:00p.m. and I have been with him since.

“This morning, the hospital workers told us that they would transfer him to Maitama General Hospital because his case is complicated and cannot be handled in that hospital. He even requested that they should allow us take him home (Kano) to one of our brothers who is also a doctor to treat him, and they said no. They now brought us here to Maitama Hospital.

“I cannot explain exactly how the bomb exploded because a few minutes before the incident, I entered the park and dropped a passenger there and God planned it that I had to go to refill my tank. We did not even think it was a bomb initially until I got to where they call Karu under bridge.

Then, I came close and discovered that it was a bomb. We came to the scene and saw that some people were being consumed by fire while others were running and crying because their bodies had peeled from burns. I stopped my motorcycle and went closer and saw many people lying dead on the ground, and some inside the vehicles. People were weeping,” Mohammed said.

Tribune