KANO BOMB ATTACK: Northerners Take Refuge At Security Formations In Onitsha

Northerners, especially Hausas residents in Onitsha in Anambra State, have fled to various security formations in the state and neighbouring Delta State capital of Asaba for fear of possible reprisal attack following Monday’s Kano bus blasts in Kano in which many Igbo have been killed.

 

The fears came after the news of the bomb blast filtered in and so northerners hurriedly closed down their shops at bridge head in Ose Okwodu and other parts of the city and take refuge at the 302 Artillery Regiment Barracks and other police stations.

 

Although nobody or group was said to have carried any reprisal attack on members of Arewa community in Onitsha or any part of the state, they became frightened that given the degree of the bomb blast and its intentional nature, members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and other people in the state will take up arms against them.

 

However, a security source who pleaded anonymity said they got information that there could be violent attack on non indigenes in the commercial city of Onitsha and all security outfits mobilized to safeguard the lives and property of the northerners in the state.

 

But leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra ( MASSOB) Chief Ralph Uwazuruike has dismissed any possible reprisal in the entire southeast and called for calm.

 

Uwazuruike told newsmen that there will be no retaliation attack on Hausa residents in various cities across the southeast. “We are not known for bloodletting and Ndigbo cannot be cowed into shedding blood but we want an end to this senseless bloodletting of Igbos in the north in whatever name  it is called”, he said.

Source: Daily Trust