Lukman Olabiyi
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has given insight into how the Monday terrorist strikes in Konduga village, Borno State, which claimed 30 lives and injured 40 others, were executed.
The UN agency, which said two girls and a boy were behind the bombing outside a viewing centre, however, did not state the ages or identities of the children.
UNICEF said five children have been used in suicide attacks since the beginning of 2019. In 2018, 48 children were used as human bombs in Nigeria, including 38 girls.
So far, nearly 200 children have been used to carry out bomb attacks in public places across Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon since 2014: four in 2014, 56 in 2015, 30 in 2016 and 27 only in the first three months of 2017.
Girls have been used in the vast majority of these attacks, UNICEF said.
The agency appealed to all those involved in bloody conflict to protect children at all times and to keep them out of harm’s way.
Meanwhile, former minister of Aviation and chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, has told President Muhammadu Buhari that it was not only Boko Haram God will judge over killing of innocent Nigerian but also those that rode on their back to get to power in 2015.
Fani-Kayode spoke in response to President Buhari’s reaction to the viewing centre attack in Konduga.
In a statement credited to the presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, Buhari decried the heinous acts and stressed that perpetrators of evil acts have judgment awaiting them, not only from man, via the long arms of the law, but also from God Almighty.
However, in his own reaction, Fani-Kayode through his Twitter handle @realFFK, posted: “President Muhammadu Buhari says God will judge Boko Haram. I concur.
“I believe, he will also judge those that rode on their back to get to power in 2015 and used them against former president Goodluck Jonathan.
“I believe, he will also judge those that have protected, encouraged and empowered the Fulani herdsmen.”