The video shows heavy presence of army personnel at the scene of the bomb blast before emergency services arrived. The Chief Security Officer of Banex Plaza also states that military presence was unusually high two hours before the bombing.
As details begin to emerge concerning the Wuse 2 shopping mall blast that claimed the lives of 22 innocent Nigerians yesterday, it has come to the fore that security agents had prior knowledge of the attack.
Isiaka Aliu, Chief Engineer of Ex- Communications and one of the tenants in the affected mall told newsmen that the mall’s private security guards were very lax with security threats, citing an instance in 2013 when they only stringently searched vehicles for two days after a bomb threat.
Chief Security Officer of Banex Plaza II, Mr. Davis Emeka, disclosed to journalists that there are indications the security guards searched the vehicles but were unable to locate the Improvised Explosive Device carefully hidden in the boot.
He said, “You know that the security situation in the plaza is very poor. They don’t screen cars. The complaint is that customers get angry.
“In December last year, we had information that the Boko Haram was going to bomb the plaza and they (private security guards at the plaza) did random searching for two days and stopped.
“Another thing is that there was a heavy security presence at the plaza two hours before the blast. There were many soldiers around. It was like they suspected that there was a threat in the area.
“What is curious is that people were not evacuated. They were in this area and that was why they arrested one of the suspects and killed the other. “
Aliu, one of the affected tenants, said there was an influx of soldiers from the Guards Brigade of the Nigerian Army, police and civil defense corps two hours before the blast.