Over 200 dead in terror attack on Nigerian commuters

14 Apr 2014
By George Conger

Over 200 people have been killed in a terror attack at a bus terminal outside the Nigerian capital of Abuja today. While no group has yet come forward to accept responsibility for the blast, the Islamist terror group Boko Haram is suspected to be behind the attack.

A priest of the Church of Nigeria, who asked not to be named as he was not speaking on behalf of the church, told Anglican Ink that witnesses report hundreds of dead and wounded from the explosion in Nyanya some 10 miles outside of Abuja. Wire service reports state that a single bomb exploded in a bus terminal during rush hour at 6:30 am on 14 April 2014 as passengers were boarding four commuter buses. The four high capacity buses, along with several smaller vans and passenger motorcycles known as “okada” were destroyed in the blast.

The attack comes a day after Boko Haram terrorists killed 60 people in North East Nigeria. The United Nations estimated last month that a half million people had fled their homes in Northern Nigeria since Boko Haram began its campaign of violence against Christians and moderate Muslims four years ago. The Church of Nigeria priest gave voice to the frustrations held by many people over the government’s inability to stop the violence, which has claimed several thousand victims this year.

In an interview published on 23 March 2014 on the Codewit website, the Primate of All Nigeria, the Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh reported that the anti-Christian violence had led the church to close the Diocese of Damatura. “The Bishop has relocated to Jos; the clergy is just being paid to keep it on.”
However, “our church in Maiduguri is miraculously on but the churches are being attacked here and there.  The Bishop has escaped so many attacks, but he is still there; so what we are doing is to find a way to support the Bishop to support his members. The Bishop is there to ensure that the church does not die,” he said.

“Let me say that evil will not win this battle no matter how long it takes,” Archbishop Okoh said.

“We are aware that some people are behind it all, because it is not just the poor Boko Haram person who is perpetrating this evil; there are people behind it who bring the money, who bring the ideology and use these poor boys as cannon fodder. By the grace of God, the evil will be defeated.”

Here at Anglican Ink