Nyanya bomb Suspects

 Declares military deserter, one other person wanted  • Offers N25m reward for their whereabouts

Yemi Akinsuyi  

The Department of State Services (DSS) has paraded five suspects in connection with the April 14 bomb

blast at the El-Rufai bus station, Nyanya, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which claimed more than 75 lives and injured scores of others.

They are Ahmad Abubakar (aka Abu Ibrahim/maiturare); Mohammed Ishaq; Yau Saidu (aka Kotar Rama), Anas Isah and Adamu Yusuf.

The spokesperson of DSS, Ms. Marilyn Ogar, who alongside other security public relations officers, addressed journalists yesterday in Abuja, also declared wanted the masterminds of the blast – Rufai Tsiga (aka Dr. Tsiga) and a military deserter, Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche.

She announced a cash reward of N25 million for information that could lead to their arrest.

Ogar explained that Ogwuche, with service number SVC 95/104, served in the intelligence unit of the Nigerian Army at Child Avenue, Arakan Barracks, Lagos, between 2001 and 2006 and was posted to the Nigerian Defence Academy in 2006.

According to her, Ogwuche was earlier arrested on November 12, 2011 at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, on his arrival from the United Kingdom, for suspected involvement in terrorism-related activities, but was released on bail on October 15, 2012 to his father, Col. Agene Ogwuche (retd.), following intense pressure from human rights activists who alleged human rights violation.

She said investigations had indicated that Tsiga and Ishaq had moved a vehicle laden with explosives to the Nyanya bus station on the night of April 13, 2014.

“In the morning of April 14, Tsiga moved the explosives-laden vehicles to the position from where he detonated the explosives,” she added.

Ogar stated that one of the suspects in custody, Abubakar who was arrested on April 22, 2014 at Gwantu, Sanga Local Government Area of Kaduna State, told interrogators that Tsiga confirmed to him that he (Tsiga) and other members of the Boko Haram sect carried out the attack at the Nyanya bus station.

She said: “According to Abubakar, Tsiga also told him that the Boko Haram national leader had directed that all members of the sect should relocate with their families to “Gaaba” (the Boko Haram forest camp) in preparation for mass attacks against the Nigerian state.”

Ishaq who was arrested at Utako village behind the construction firm, Julius Berger’s yard, following Abubakar's confession, served as a sales boy in Tsiga's patent medicine store at Utako called “Kishi Clinic”, a structure that also served as a base for Boko Haram’s covert activities in the FCT.

Ogar said: “Ishaq further revealed that Tsiga later informed him that the bombs used for the blast were coupled at the residence of one Adamu Yusuf on a day before the blast, and he and Tsiga drove the car laden with explosives and parked it behind four buses inside the Nyanya bus park overnight, after which they left the area.”