ABUJA BLAST: How NIS Recruitment Survivors Escaped Death Twice.

Injured victims of the Abuja explosion will probably never forget their terrible experience. However, they are still happy to stay alive.

People help a victim of a bomb blast into the emergency ward of the Asokoro General Hospital in Abuja April 14, 2014. Photo: Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde

Oguike Charles and Abang Malview had a bad luck to go through both the deadly Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment stampede on March 15 and the explosion at the Nyanya bus park just a month later. But – miraculously – they both were fortunate to survive.

Oguike, who is receiving treatment in Asokoro General Hospital, shared his experience with This Day.

"Yesterday (Monday), when I got to Nyanya bus stop, where we used to enter el-Rufai buses, I bought my ticket and queued up at the entry point. Just then, there was an explosion," said the unemployed graduate.

"The explosion happened in such a way that I couldn’t recognise myself; I saw so many dead bodies flying. Then, I knew that apart from breathing, life is nothing. In fact, in my own case, this is the second time I have escaped death narrowly. I escaped the immigration stampede and now I have escaped death from bomb blast."

Job-seekers applying for work at the Nigerian immigration department scramble as their exam papers fly in the air, on the pitch of Abuja National Stadium, on March 15, 2014. AFP PHOTO

Just like Oguike, Abang, who also had survived the NIS stampede, could not believe he was alive after the Nyanya blast.

Abang, 30, recalled how those who stood beside him at the bus station perished in the blast, while the force of the explosion lifted and threw him to the other side of the park.

"As God would have it, it just lifted me, threw me afar and I survived. All the people who were there with me where I bought the ticket perished. When I came to from the impact of the explosion, I stood up and saw the place was engulfed with fire. However, I was struggling to move as I had twisted my foot, so some people came and gave me aid; they dragged me away from the fire."
On April 14, a heavy explosion shook Nyanya bus park at the outskirts of Abuja at 6.30am, killing at least 75 people. Just a month earlier nearly 20 people died in a stampede during the NIS recruitment exercise in Abuja and seven other centres in the country.