Abuja Blast: SSS Confirms Advanced Warning

Following Wednesday’s bomb blast, the spokesperson of the Department of State Security Services (SSS), Marilyn Ogar said on Thursday that the department had received intelligence report about two weeks ago that a bombing would occur in Abuja.

Marilyn Ogar

According to her, after they got the information, the police took action, going from market to market and one shopping mall to another trying to warn people to be more conscious and to ensure that anybody that does not have any business within any shopping mall should not be allowed to go inside, Daily Independent reports.

Speaking during a press conference in Abuja, she explained that on the day of the incident, the surveillance team had been at the plaza up to about 12.30 p.m. observing and when they noticed that the management and the security people were actually enforcing the instruction they passed to them, they had to retreat.

“And you all know that when the man tried to penetrate the main entrance, he was refused and normally as is typical of them they will want to beat traffic or beat security to come to the other entrance. When he tried to enter through here, of course the explosion exploded," she said.

Related: Abuja Bomb Blast: Victims Recount Ordeal

She disclosed that the suspects apprehended in connection with the bombing were currently being investigated and will soon be shown to the public.

Ogar said, "We don’t want to be in hurry to reveal them now. We don’t want what happened when we were investigating the Nyanya incident to happen. So we are a little bit circumspect in whatever we do,” DSS spokesperson, Marylyn Ogar, told newsmen at a press conference in Abuja."

She therefore called on Nigerians to continue to give security agents information that will assist them stop the terrorist.

The explosion, which occurred on Wednesday at the Emab plaza in the Wuse area of Abuja, is said to have claimed over 20 lives while leaving several persons injured. One of the suspects was reportedly killed, while another was caught and arrested by security agents.