'My sisters were blown into pieces' - Mather

Mather Godwin, a groundnut seller at the scene of the blast said her two sisters, one who was pregnant and another who was breast-feeding, were blown up in the blast, she said that
she left the scene of the blast a minute before the blast. Mather, an indigene of Benue State said the blast went off minutes after she asked her sisters to meet her at home then she saw them blown and shattered by the explosion.

“A man came and bought all my ground-nuts and I went to my sisters and told them to meet me at home and shortly after I left the place I heard the blast and when I turned back, I saw their mangled bodies scattered. Two of them are Blessing and Angela and my friend’s sister was also blown up including all the banana sellers around the place, and their babies, she said.

Sadiq Bode, another eyewitness who narrated his experience said: “It happened at the exit gate of Emab Plaza from a vehicle suspected to be a jeep. I was inside the plaza when it happened. The bomber was stopped by the security man before he ran away. In fact, it happened when one influential person came to buy a phone in the market with team of mobile police men guarding him and when we heard the blast, we ran with them, including the policemen running with their guns, jumping fence. I don’t know if it was the big man they were targeting, but when I came back I did not see the people around the place again, all of them got blown up in the blast”.

Another eyewitness, a computer and phone repairer, who declined to give his name said: “The bomber came in Sienna bus and passed through the wrong gate and because there was hold up, a security man who was also blown up in the blast forced him to go back. That was when one man selling cigarette raised alarm that the driver was a suicide bomber and as he was shouting, he was running. The bomber came out of the car without shoe and with earpiece in his two ears he started running before we heard the blast and everybody started running. The most affected in the blast were the hawkers, women selling banana and groundnut”.