Ondo Explosion: Afenifere calls for inquiry

Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has called for an inquiry into the explosion that occurred on Akure-Owo Road in Ondo State early Saturday morning, destroying property worth billions of naira, noting that all accounts so far indicated that the explosion occurred from a possible fire incident from a vehicle that was carrying explosives through the state.

Afenifere made this call on Saturday in a statement made available to newsmen in Lagos by its national publicity secretary, Mr Yinka Odumakin, while expressing heartfelt sympathy with the government and people of Ondo State over the disaster as well as displeasure with the rate of explosions in Yorubaland in recent time.

The group, while further noting that the identities of the movers of the explosives had not yet been known as “the police have claimed they were escorting the ordinances (bombs) when they noticed some challenge,” enjoined that the inquiry should be conducted in accordance with Ordinance and Fiream Acts to be able to determine the type of ordinances that exploded.

According to Afenifere, the inquiry should be able to ascertain the following, namely: “the identities of those transporting the ordinances; the origin of the ordinances; who assigned the escorting policemen and under what circumstance and  where was the destination of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IED)?”

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“Afenifere expresses our heartfelt sympathy with the government and people of Ondo State over the explosion that occurred on Akure-Owo Road early this morning.

“All accounts so far indicate that the explosion occurred from a possible fire incident from a vehicle that was carrying explosives through the state.

“Though the identities of the movers have not yet been known, the police have claimed they were escorting the ordinances (bombs) when they noticed some challenge.

“While we have nothing to contradict the stated accounts yet, we demand an inquiry into this disaster in accordance with Ordinance and Fiream Acts to be able to determine the type of ordinances that exploded.

“The inquiry should be able to ascertain the following:
1 The identities of those transporting the ordinances:
2 The origin of the ordinances:
3 Who assigned the escorting policemen and under what circumstance?
4 Where was the destination of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IED)?” Afenifere said.

The group, while still waiting for answers to the posers raised, expressed displeasure with the rate of explosions in Yorubaland in recent time, including the blast in Ekiti State in early February with investigation blaming it on “human error,” followed by the massive explosion in Abule Ado in Lagos “which was attributed to some spurious pipeline explosion which we rejected because the long-range impacts of that explosion could not have come from pipeline explosion.”

“Till date, we don’t know the owners of the articulated vehicles found on the scene of the Lagos explosion while the number of casualties and level of suggested damage done to Catholic-owned Bethlehem School suggested deliberate targeting.

“While we wait to know the level of casualty in the latest incident in Ondo, we appeal to our people to be very careful in these perilous times,” Afenifere said.

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