If the bomb ferrying man’s
mission was to kill, an
unsuspecting commercial
motorcyclist popularly called
okada helped seal the fate of
those present at the St. Rita Catholic Church, Badarwa,
Kaduna last Sunday, a Sabbath
day. That was the day a man of
fiendish disposition, determined
to end his life and those of other
innocent people in a macabre
manner, loaded explosives into a
Mercedes Benz SUV, black in colour, and headed for the
Church. Badarwa is a rather rundown
suburb of Kaduna, where
Christians and Muslims live side-
by-side in an uneasy relationship
that has continued to oscillate
between cold, warm and hot. According to accounts, it would
appear that the man was a
stranger to Badarwa, because
he had driven past a crossing
leading to the fortified church
and had had cause to stop an okada operator for direction,
promising to pay handsomely if
he would lead him to the Church. It was an innocuous demand with
the prospect of a good return,
the bike man must have reasoned.
And in less than a minute he led
the stranger in the tinted four-
wheel Benz to the barricaded gate of the Church, where Rev,
Father Mike Bonni was offering
Communion Prayers. It was about
8: 45 am, and there was no sign of
the usual two, armed policemen
and two members of the Civil Defence Corps there. Sunday
Vanguard was able to confirm
this. Now a drama ensued between
the driver of the vehicle and the
okada operator. Instead of
paying the bike man, the man in
the jeep started arguing with
the people at the gate to allow him in. But the three lads in
brown khaki and brown boots
(church cadets) brandishing
metal detectors refused him
entry, saying only the parish
priest was allowed to park his car within the church premises
during Mass. Heavy metal bars stood between
the man and the Church. It was obvious that the cadets
were bent on refusing him entry.
His escort on bike sat on his
machine thinking his service
would be paid for soon as the
“big” man found space to park. But strangely, as recalled by
those who claimed to have
witnessed what happened, the
driver hastily reversed some few
metres; he then surged forward
in full speed, heading directly for the fence of the church. With mouths agape, the okada
rider and the cadets watched
him as he rammed the luxury car
into the fence and drove
through. A few metres ahead laid the
Catholic shrine where the Virgin
Mary is usually venerated. He
took it down too. But that shrine
slowed his pace. Then, suddenly,
just before he could burst into the Church, packed with over
1000 worshippers, the jeep
became a mobile bomb. The
explosion that resulted could be
heard within a five kilometre
radius from the blast. And it created a rattling tremor too.
It brought down the wall of the
church, sending shrapnels and
projectiles into the
congregation. Though the vehicle never made it
into the church building, its
effect was felt by the building.
Adjoining buildings were
damaged including parked cars,
as part of the exploded car bust into flames. Survivors recalled a scene
of chaos. Burnt human flesh and
the effluvium of the explosives
created an offensive gas. “The
okada man was shouting
in shock, reciting la’Ila Illahu in Arabic, an eyewitness recounted
to Sunday Vanguard some hours
after the explosion. “He was saying, ‘if I had known
that this man was evil, I would
not have directed him here. Oh
Allah, what has become of this
world’ ”, the eye witness told
Sunday Vanguard. In Bardarwa, as in most parts of
Kaduna town where Muslims and
Christians have defined
boundaries, there are two kinds
of people that respond to such
emergencies: Those that go for the rescue, and those that maim,
kill and destroy property as a
means of vengeance. Unfortunately for the Hausa
okada rider, those that first
heard his lamentation were of
the second category. “He is with the bomber! He
brought the bomber! Kill him! Burn
him!” rented the air. Sunday
Vanguard was told by eye
witnesses that the crowd
ostensibly Christian youths, descended on him, and set him
ablaze, along with his bike. His murder may have averted a
bigger calamity, as events were
to later show. But, just as the mob began to
swell, with youths trooping out
from different directions, the
Army arrived and stamped out
the emerging revolt. But the arrival of the military men
did not stop the pandemonium
that was to take over the city. The body of the suicide bomber,
(likely a member of the Islamic
Terrorist Boko Haram) was cut
into two – his lower and upper
torso. His upper torso was flung
from the jeep onto the fence where it dangled, with the
suicide bomber still showing signs
of live. “Some one came with a stick and
started hitting it”, said another
eye witness, “but soldiers chased
him away”. At the end of the whole gory
event, the National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA) put
the death toll at 8, with 135
injured. It would however appear that
the collateral damage was the
painfully slow rate of
reconciliation between Muslims
and Christians in Kaduna that
was again shattered.
Catholic Arch-Bishop of Kaduna
diocese, Mathew Man Oso
Ndagos, when he spoke to the
press after visiting and praying
with some 14 injured members of
the Church at St. Gerard’s Catholic Hospital, Kakuri, said:
“What happened was
unfortunate, being the second
time that the Catholic Church,
and the third time Churches were
bombed in Kaduna State. Once again, as Christians and as
Catholics, we are challenged to
deliver our own faith to witness
for us. I think we are even
called to witness our faith as
more credible and to bear the message of the Bible to those
who hate us. “In the five hospitals we have
visited so far, most of the victims
are children. And therefore you
begin to wonder if a human being
in his full senses could do such a
thing. Honestly, as a person, I believe that the person who
could carry out such wickedness,
deserve our pity and mercy. He
has only tested the integrity of
our faith; these kinds of people
are not in their right senses. “How could a human being, who
claims to be working for any kind
of god, go to a place where
people are worshiping God with
a bomb and do this kind of harm
to them? I know we are in difficult times, but my advice to
Christians and my fellow
Catholics in Kaduna State is that
difficult situations do not make
us less Christians. In the same
vein, difficult situations do not make us less human. No matter
how difficult the situation is. My
appeal to Catholic youths and all
our Christian brethren is ‘never,
never retaliate’! Two wrongs can
never, and will never make a right”, he said. But, not many Christians in
Kaduna town have such grace
and magnanimity towards the
Muslim camps. In Sabo, Television Village, Narayi,
Maraban Rido and most Christian
strong holds, the youths
mobilised for a show-down but
discovered that the Muslim
minority had fled as soon as they heard about the carnage at St.
Rita. But, as news filtered that
the Christian youths in Badarawa
had taken their pound of flesh
and that the harm was not of
unforgivable proportion, added to the pleas of local elders and
church leaders, what would have
been a headache for the Army
and police subsided.
www.vanguardngr.com/2012/11/kaduna-bombing-okada-please-lead-me-to-st-rita-catholic-church-suicide-bomber/

May the peace of God dwell within us.

Muslims are lucky that we are not in the time of moses, islam would have gone extinct