Two persons were killed in a bomb explosion that occurred on January 6, 2025 at an Islamiyya school located in the Kuchibiyu community in  Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory. Two other persons who were wounded in the incident were immediately rushed to the Kubwa General Hospital. The secretary to the Chief of Kuchibiyu, Malam Yusuf Alkali, said the school, which was established about four years ago, focuses on the teaching of itinerant students known as almajirai. While Kuchibiyu is an agrarian settlement located on the outskirts of Kubwa, Bwari community has a history of banditry and terror attacks.

The spokesperson of the FCT Police Command, Josephine Adeh, in a statement, said upon receiving a distress call from the Sarkin Kuchibiyu, a team of police operatives, including the command’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team and the Area Commander of Kubwa, swiftly mobilised to the scene at the Tsangayar Sani Uthman in Kuchibiyu. She said preliminary investigations revealed that three men from Katsina had visited the owner of the Islamic school, Malam Adamu Ashimu; adding that the proprietor of the school had been taken into custody for questioning.

“The three visitors are suspected of having brought the explosive device with them. Tragically, two of the men died in the explosion while tampering with the improvised explosive device (IED), on the school veranda, while the third man and a female trader sustained severe injuries and are currently receiving treatment under police guard,” Adeh stated. She also said the FCT Bomb Squad had confirmed that it was an IED explosion, as remnants of the device had been recovered.

There had been several incidents of bombings in Abuja and its environs since 2010. The first incident, which occurred on October 1, 2010 during Nigeria’s 50th Independence Day celebration when two vehicle bombs exploded near the Eagle Square in Abuja with a casualty record of 12 deaths and 17 injuries.  There was another one on June 16, 2011 when a suicide bomber targeted the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters in Abuja, killing two people, including the bomber and a traffic officer. Boko Haram terrorists later claimed responsibility for the bombing.

On August 26, 2011, a suicide bomber struck at the United Nations (UN) building in Abuja, leaving 21 people dead and many others injured. Thirty-five persons were reportedly killed and many others in the Christmas Day bombing of St Theresa’s Church at Madalla, a Niger State community bordering the FCT. The incident happened during a church service. Boko Haram also claimed to have carried out the attack.

Meanwhile, one of the victims of the Kuchibiyu school explosion in Abuja, Fauziyya Iliya, 13, told reporters from her hospital bed that Harisu called her in front of the school where the students usually buy soya bean cake (awara) from her. “He introduced a small object to me which he said he found from a mountain close to the school. He told me to take it and give him N200, or awara, for the object, which I declined.

“He then jokingly threatened to take N100 worth of awara from me, and kept the object behind a plastic rubber where I usually display my awara. I immediately noticed that the bucket got broken. He pushed his hand towards the bucket in an attempt to pick the item, only to see him fall down. I attempted to flee the scene, but could not do that apart from crawling. The object broke into pieces, injuring my two legs and one hand; while the person that brought it got one of his hands cut off,” narrated Fauziyya. Fauziyya’s mother, Salamatu Lawal, who was at the hospital, said she heard the explosion from their home.

Fauziyya’s eye-witness account sufficiently suggests that the police were hasty in their conclusion that linked three Katsina visitors to the explosion. Rushing to unverifiable conclusions without diligent investigations into incidents most often lead to false accusations that implicate innocent citizens. This time around, Nigerians cannot afford to accept the usual police resort to guess-work founded on fixated narrations. The period between the explosion and when the police issued their quick statement that identified three visitors as prime suspects in the bomb explosion was too short to have concluded thorough investigations into the incident including the chemical analysis of the explosive device and its source.

Meanwhile, we advise all school proprietors and managers in all parts of the country to be more vigilant of what happens in and around their school premises.

While the Nigerian public will refuse to accept easy jump to conclusions by the police as an excuse for not doing their job conscientiously, such professional negligence would only cause them to lose public confidence.

Probing bomb explosions is a matter that requires deep inquiry, tracing, and intelligence. We, therefore, urge the police to diligently deploy their professional expertise in unravelling and prosecuting the masterminds of the explosion. We equally encourage the police to beef up their surveillance patrols nationwide. Intelligence gathering through detective policing should be a priority to the Nigeria Police Force if only to accomplish their mission on crime prevention and counter terrorism.