Bomb Blast In Benin City Edo State.

There was tension in Benin City, Tuesday, after five houses were destroyed in a bomb blast. The incident which occurred at about 3pm caused pandemonium  in the City, as it was rumored that the dreaded Boko Haram sect may have been responsible for the blast.  According to reports, residents of Zomi Zomi street, in Upper Sakpoba Road, took to their heels after the explosion.

One of the buildings destroyed by the explosions. Photo: Jefferson Ibiwale.

A police source at the scene informed Vanguard that,” we learnt that the bungalow where the bomb was detonated was being used as a hideout by kidnappers some months ago. But a combined unit of soldiers and the police invaded the house and arrested the suspects.

Narrating his ordeal, the patent medicine dealer, Elue Chinedu, said he rented the entire building about nine months ago.

He disclosed that after an electrician carried out some minor repairs in his living room, he decided to sweep and burn the refuse at a nearby refuse dump.

“An electrician came to work in the house and I said let me use the opportunity to clean the compound. I gathered the waste papers together and wanted to burn it. As I was burning the papers, I said let me go and buy ice cream. That was when the thing exploded and I sustained some injuries,” he said. Chinedu was later whisked away by the police.

As the time of filling this report, Bomb Disposal experts from the Edo state police command have cordoned off the building and trying to ascertain if  there are more explosives in the building.

A 70-year-old woman, Hannah Francis, who lives directly opposite the scene of the explosion, said she heard a deafening sound and had come out to find out what happened, only to see a thick, dark smoke from the building.

One of the occupants of the affected buildings and a woman who was passing by were said to have sustained serious injuries from the explosion, but no live was lost.

This latest development is sure to send shivers down the spines of Edo indigenes as reports of bombing are seldom heard in the state, especially in the capital and historic city of Benin.

Source: Vanguard