Security Sources: Lagos Explosion Was A Car Bombing

Almost twenty four hours after an explosion happened on Tuesday, 25 June, 2014, night on Creek Road near the Burma Road junction in Apapa, Lagos State, western Nigeria, security sources are saying the explosion was a car bombing.

This is contrary to information sent out earlier today by the Lagos State Government officials that the explosion, which eyewitnesses reported to have occurred around 9:15pm on Tuesday, came from a gasoline tanker parked beside a gasoline depot in Apapa.

Premium Times reports that two security sources disclosed that the explosion was apparently carried out by a female suicide bomber and was aimed at igniting several gasoline depots in the area.

It was gathered that a security source said the explosion could have triggered a massive inferno and inflicted a horrifying scale of casualties in the Apapa area, which serves as residential area as well as the hub of economic activities, including shipping, manufacturing, and storage of petrochemical products.

* Boko Haram sect.

The source informed that said the suicide bomber apparently planned to ignite a series of gas distribution plants and gasoline depots owned by Folawiyo Energy some 150 meters away from the site of the explosion.


Earlier reports stated that at least four persons were killed by the explosion, among them the female suicide bomber who drove a Mercedes Benz car that caused the explosion.


Those that got to the scene of the bomb blast opined that the head of the female driver lay on the ground next to the Mercedes Benz used in the bombing.

* Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola
Commenting on the explosion, the Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Mr. Kehinde Adebayo, had told reporters that the explosion was from a gasoline tanker.
Also, officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told SaharaReporters that the incident was a fire outbreak on Commercial Road in Apapa.

The Federal emergency officials said they were denied entry to the scene of the car bomb and were excluded by Lagos officials from participating in the rescue and recovery process.

 * Scene of explosion in Apapa, Lagos
No group has claimed responsibility for the apparent car bomb and will be the first in Lagos since the Boko Haram insurgency entered its most violent stage in 2009.
The United Nations, UN, some weeks ago blacklisted the Islamists militant group saying the sect had killed over four thousand lives since 2009.