Madalla: Suicide bomber did it -Church security officer
By IKENNA EMEWU and IHEANACHO NWOSU, Abuja
Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Just a day after the dastardly incident of Madalla St. Theresa Catholic Church that claimed scores of lives, Daily Sun can exclusively reveal the unknown details of the act. That real fact hitherto known or reported until Daily Sun encountered a survivor of the attack who narrated the inside is that the bombing of the church was a suicide act. Mr. Francis Raphael, a lanky dark man, who incidentally is the head of the internal security system of the church could be the luckiest in the incident because he was standing just beside the agent of death when he struck.

In a chat with him with the tell-tale bandages, injuries and dressings all over his clean shaven head, Mr. Francis gave the graphic details of how after the church must have dismissed sometime between 7.30am and 8.00, he as the head of the security working with two policemen, an Inspector and another of lower rank, manned the crossing of the worshippers on the busy Suleja-Madalla road.

“While I stood they are the first to get to the side of the road because we donít allow members just run across the road after dismissal to avoid any problems, I spotted a flashy gold-coloured Toyota Camry coming in from the Suleja end. The police Inspector tried to flag the car down so that the worshippers would pass, but he could not stop. At a point, the junior police officer also made efforts to stop him and he still refused to. He was possibly buying time to wait for more persons to come to the road side and possibly to come nearer the front of the gate of the church.

“It was during this drama with the policemen that I stepped out to the road and tried to prevail on the car driver to stop while our members passed. So at this moment, he totally pulled to a stop and I had a feeling he meant well. But immediately the crowd advanced towards the road, he quickly did a sharp turn, opened his car at full blast instantly and ran into the crowd. At the point of his carís impact with the crowd, it exploded, and there was flame everywhere. Because I was standing by the side of the car, I just jumped to a side and fell far from it. From there I crawled for some metres almost blind because terrible impact that looked more like a dream dazed everybody. As I ran, blood from the injuries on my head had already covered my entire face. So I just managed to run farther into safety. And because of the position of the two policemen who stood at the direction he turned before ramming into the crowd, two of them died. With the impact of the explosion which you see the extent of damage it did to the buildings far away and how the car got blown up into flames, there is no doubt that the driver of the car died in the act. What I canít say for sure is whether he was alone in the car or with any other occupant.
“With my position and location at the time of the incident, nobody living knows this story more than myself, and nay other version of the story you hear from any other source other than what I have said is like hearsay. I know there are various parts of stories told about what happened, but they are not quite true. What is true is what I have told you.”

On whether the bomb was planted under a parked disused vehicle by the roadside in front of the church as was earlier told, Raphael said emphatically that there was never such abandoned car anywhere around the church. “It is possible the car people mistook for a vehicle abandoned and in disuse is the Mercedes Benz car of a church member who parked by the roadside while mass was on. It wasn’t an abandoned vehicle. We never allowed anything like that around here because of past experiences.”

Raphael said last year at the end of the year vigil, his men found some men who intended to come into the church posing as members but had knives and other harmful weapons on them. “After that experience, we beefed up security at the church and even deployed body scanners to frisk people before they get into the church. That was why we started having police guard in the area whenever we had activities. So there was no information to us particularly of an impending attack that made us bring policemen because it has always been so, he said

The church security operative noted that the figure announced either by the press or government agencies as the injury toll of the incident is false and far from the reality. “Quote me anywhere as someone who stood there when the crowd of members surged out the bomber ran into them the casualty list is in scores. My brother, so many people died, and it sounds ridiculous to say there were about 30 or less deaths in the incident. I really fault that figure and from the story i have told you, you can know that the bombing was targeted at the church and someone possibly must have been around communicating with that suicide bomber to let him know when the church dismissed and the crowd was out for maximum impact.”

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