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From Noah Ebije, Kaduna and Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Men of the Nigeria Police Explosive Ordinance Department (EOD) have on Thursday defused an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Rigasa, the Kaduna community where the Abuja-Kaduna train station is located.
The explosive device according to sources in Rigasa was found in a bucket along Makarfi road area of the community.
Kaduna State Police Command Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Muhammad Jalige who confirmed the development to Reporters n a telephone interview, said their men were immediately deployed to the scene after receiving a tip-off.
According to him, “yes there was an IED planted around Makarfi Road, Rigasa this morning. We received a distress call and our officers from the EOD were deployed to the scene.
“On getting to the scene, they identified the device as Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and they successfully defused the device without causing harm to anyone,” he said.
Normalcy has however returned to the area as at the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, Benue State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) has lamented the renewed attacks on Benue communities recently saying the development has further swelled the number of displaced persons in the state to two million.
Executive Secretary of the agency, Dr. Emmanuel Shior, disclosed while distributing relief materials to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), yesterday.
Shior regretted the recent displacement of people from eight communities in Kwawith a view to are presently under siege.
“We have close to two million IDPs in the state as at now. We have recorded increase in our IDP camps because attacks have continued. We have received the news of the attacks on eight communities in Kwande, but what we need to do is to take interim measures by providing food and shelter. We are arranging for that. Our movement requires resources and getting such resources to intervene takes a little while because of government’s due process.”
Shior said the state has seven official camps and 20 unofficial camps housing displaced persons stressing that the situation had resulted in government being overstretched in terms of providing logistics for the catering of persons in IDP camps.
The SEMA boss dispelled insinuations in some quarters, that the relief materials do not get to the IDPs, saying, “many believe that when we load relief materials, we do not take them to the camps, that it is a sham.”
