3 Unexploded Bombs Discovered At Construction Site In Enugu State

It was yet another shocker when three unexploded bombs believed to be remnants of explosives used during the three-year of Nigerian civil war was discovered at a construction site in Enugu by labourers digging a foundation.

The Field Administrator of the Nigerian Mine Action Centre, a department of the Federal Ministry of Defence, Dr. Emeka Uhegbu, told newsmen shortly after removing the three unexploded bombs at the site, which is close to the 9th Mile area of Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State, that if the unexploded bombs were not found and detonated, they could kill innocent people.

He maintained that over 50, 000 unexpended explosives were presently scattered across 12 states of the South-East, South-South and North-Central, warning that residents of the affected areas must be careful of such objects. The affected areas include all the states of the South-East and South-South zones and Benue and Nassarawa in North-Central zone of the country. He disclosed that following the discovery by the labourers, the anti-bomb unit of the Enugu State Police Command was alerted, who in turn informed the ministry leading to the removal of the bombs by their officials.

He noted that if the labourers had made mistake of hitting a hard object on the explosives, it had the capacity of killing thousands of people around the area, which was less than a kilometre to the country home of Governor Sullivan Chime. "We have our zonal office in Owerri with the responsibility of removing the explosive remnants of the civil war in 12 states; we have continued to remove some of these unexploded explosives since 2009. Not long ago, we equally removed bombs in Enugu and detonated them at the Ugwu-Onyeama area in the presence of Governor Chime represented by his deputy, the then minister of Defence, Shettimah, the police, soldiers and other security operatives.

"Today, we removed three from a construction site close to 9th Mile in Udi. We are not supposed to move about with it but we decided to come here to show it to newsmen and use the opportunity to ask our people to be vigilant because these objects are scattered across the states," Uhegbu said. while calling on residents of the affected states who mistakenly run into the objects in their farms, places of work, construction sites and churches to immediately report to the nearest police station to facilitate their removal.

"If you tamper with it, it could kill; the least it can do would be to maim you. We are appealing to our people that the war has ended but these things are still continuing the war. We are one in this country; we are going round removing them. "The United Nations compelled the country to de-mine the country after the civil war but the then head of state, Yakubu Gowon, did not de-militarise Nigeria, he merely asked people to go to work.

There ought to have been a deliberate measure to remove all these things so that our people could go to farm without running the risk of losing their lives. We've been asked to scan the land and remove them. We have facilities, scanners and locators, which we are using to know where these ordinances are located," he said.