The national body of commercial motorcycle riders yesterday claimed that at least 100 of its members died in the Easter Sunday blast in Kaduna.
“Yesterday [Sunday] was a very dark day. This is because we lost our members and other innocent Nigerians. On the average, over 100 of our members lost their lives,” Secretary-General of the Amalgamated Commercial Motorcycle Owners and Riders Association of Nigeria (ACOMORAN), Nasir Mamman, told reporters in Kaduna on Monday adding that the association would call an emergency meeting to compile the statistics of members that died in the blast.
Corroborating the figure was the Kano Road, Kaduna, branch Chairman of the union, Danjuma Issa, who stated that most of the dead members of the riders association were burnt beyond recognition.
“It was an unfortunate incident, more so that it mostly affected our members. You can see that we are few here today. We are still mourning and searching for most of our members that we believe were killed in the blast.
“Families of some of our members have been trooping to various hospitals in the state to search for their loved ones. You cannot even identify some of the dead because they were burnt beyond recognition.” Isaa said.
A Bomb laden Honda car with a lone occupant early Easter Sunday went off at the Junction/Sardauna Crescent area of Kaduna, killing mostly commercial motorcycle operators, fuel hawkers and passersby and also damaged about 60 houses within the vicinity.
The Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Abubakar Jingiri described the explosion as “massive”.
The spokesman for the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Abubakar Zakari Adamu, on Sunday stated that 36 persons, including the lone bomber were killed in the blast.
In an interview with Vanguard News, the Kaduna State Commissioner of Police disputed SEMA’s figure saying that the figure was false.
“Official figure before me confirms that the death toll is 11. My officers went round the hospitals. We were given this figure by the hospitals, not hearsay.
“I am yet to get a contradictory figure from the Hospitals.” Jingiri said.
Meanwhile casualty figures from Sunday tragedy rose on Monday as three of the injured victims died at the Barau Dikko Specialist Hospital in the state capital.
