Presidential candidate of Young Progressives Party (YPP) and son of the Ohinoyi Atta lll of Ebiraland in Okene, Prince Malik Ado-Ibrahim, has called for a thorough probe of the explosion that rocked Okene, the home town of Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello.
The Kogi State government had said the explosion at a community in Okene in which three persons were reportedly killed, while two others sustained injuries last Thursday at a mosque near the palace of Ado Ibrahim, the paramount ruler of Ebiraland, was from an electricity transformer.
The blast occurred about one hour before President Muhammadu Buhari arrived in the area to inaugurate projects completed by the state government.
But speaking in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP yesterday, Ado-Ibrahim insisted that it was a bomb blast.
The YPP flagbearer warned that such a security breach is an indication that the integrity and safety of the president, following the explosion was at stake, as well as Nigeria’s integrity.
“For me it is clear once again, that either Mr. President’s security is compromised or there is no fear of repercussions or arrest from these perpetrators. This would clearly mean they can do this to whomever they wish to in this great nation.
“As a presidential candidate in these 2023 elections, I have spoken near and far, about upgrading our security, changing our predictable security counter measures and bringing more modernity into all the security architecture of this nation,” he said.
Ado-Ibrahim who is also the founder of Reset Nigeria Initiative, queried why the president’s advance team was not informed that the incident happened and that the state security was tracking such criminality,
He urged the security agencies, including the Nigerian armed forces and all well meaning Nigerians to demand that a thorough investigation into, not only how a bomb was able to be delivered and detonated “with the so-called knowledge of state leadership and above all how the presidential candidates was allowed to attend an eye r888 when such an act of violence and destruction, that caused loss of life had taken place within hours of his arrival.
“This all being said, if all this was not bad enough reason to Highlight the question of the state of security in Kogi state and Okene itself, but this is also the home town and state of the governor of Kogi state who lives within 500 m of the explosion itself.
“What has prompted me to even write this passage and bring it to the attention of the security agencies is that on 29th December, 2022 nearly an hour after the bomb explosion, the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari, was commissioning projects that were recently built in the state,” he stated.
Noting that it was a grave breach of the president’s security, Ado-Ibrahim said, “Under every national security protocol and most importantly, under the security protocol of the movement of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria the commissioning of those project should have been aborted almost immediately, as it would’ve been completely unclear as to who the perpetrators of this dastardly act was and furthermore, it would’ve been impossible to have definitely come to an assessment as to the safety of the president while he would be at this event.
“This would have been even more reason to snort the mission, especially as the event was also within 200m of where the bomb had exploded.
“Furthermore, immediately after the event, the narrative of the leadership of the state was that a transformer had blown and caused minor damage. This narrative of a transform explosion had been put forward under the Twitter account of the commissioner for Information, as well as the state commissioner of police.
“As a security expert, I can say that there was a complete and utter failure in realising and accepting that the bomb blast had created a clear and present danger to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as well as the integrity of Nigeria if such an explosion had caused more intense damage or endangered the life of our president,” he added.
Prince Ado-Ibrahim further said barely two days later, a state security expert attached to the state leadership announced that they were aware of some misguided politicians, and had been tracking the perpetrators and they were aware of it before the bomb exploded.
He continued: “It beggars belief that if that was the case how on earth was Mr. President allowed to even be in the state, that’s not even questioning whether he could attend an event that was within 200m of this bomb explosion, within an hour of this explosion haven’t happened.
“I also question if the President’s advance team were made aware that they were tracking such criminality, I question if the Department of State Security (DSS) HQ or in Kogi State were made aware of the fact that the state’s private security apparatus was tracking this intended act.
“Why wasn’t the president’s team made aware of the fact that this bomb had gone off, and why instead was the narrative of a transformer explosion presented to them?”
He said the incident was a wake-up call to strengthen and fortify the movement of the president, whatever his movement is and will be over the next coming months before he leaves office.
The presidential hopeful added: “It doesn’t take much to imagine such a device blowing up at an event or against his motorcade, if it can clearly happen within 200 m of where he is due to attend an event.
“Yes, it is the political season and we have seen the worst of what happens in our nation as people thirst for political power and influence. There is the willingness of politicians, and their cronies to do all that is necessary even to kill and injure people, just in the selfish need to grab power in what should be one of the greatest democracies if not, in Africa, but on these great democracies on earth.”
