Boko Haram targets Gov Kashim’s convoy

An explosive device believed to have been thrown by the Boko Haram and targeted at the convoy of Gov Kashim Shettima yesterday afternoon in Maiduguri went off few minutes after the governor’s convoy passed the area. Governor Kashim who was received at the Maiduguri Airport yesterday afternoon by thousands of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) supporters was riding in a long convoy which included senior government officials, ANPP chieftains and friends of the governor following the favourable verdict of the Justice Sani Adamu-led Borno Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja last week. But shortly after driving past the Airport-Bulunkutu Road to the Government House with the party supporters in a big funfair, an explosive believed to have been thrown by the Boko Haram men went off. The governor who arrived the state from Abuja at about 3.30 pm was just about a kilometre from the Bulunkutu end, the scene of the incident, when the blast was heard, causing panic among residents and some of the supporters who had come to cheer the governor. A military officer said the explosion was targeted at the convoy of the governor but maintained the tight security measures put in place by the police and the Joint Task Force to ensure the reception organize to celebrate the governor’s victory at the tribunal “might have forced the bombers to beat a retreat by only creating panic with the blast almost 40 minutes after the governor convoy had passed.” JTF Operational Officer, Colonel Victor Ebheleme told Daily Sun the blast was not an explosion. “How can you call that one an explosion, it was just a small thing in a small container. It is not a bomb blast at all,” he maintained. Police Commissioner, Simeon Midenda said the blast came from a canister thrown at a police patrol vehicle, adding that, “it did not affect either the targeted vehicle or any person around.