Three suicide bombers were killed yesterday in a pre-dawn attack close to the NNPC depot on Damboa Road, Maiduguri.
Three fuel tankers were set ablaze in the attack , ahead of a planned visit by the United Nations Security Council to assess the Boko Haram crisis in Nigeria.
One of the bombers, an elderly woman, blew herself up beside a stationary tanker loaded with fuel around 3 a.m.
With her were a boy and a girl who continued going on the road towards the fuel depot until they were challenged by soldiers who fired at them to avert what could have been a major attack on the fuel depot.
“We are lucky. Today could have been another sad day for us in Maiduguri,” the state Police Commissioner Damian Chukwu told reporters at the scene.
“They (soldiers) ordered them to stop, but they chose to run,” Gajibo said. “The male suicide bomber detonated his explosives near S. Baba (gas) Filling Station, while the girl was shot at by the military and ran under a parked truck loaded with petrol products which went up in flames when her explosives detonated”.
Firefighters razed to the spot, opposite the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),to douse the fire.
Spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Abdulkadir Ibrahim, confirmed three deaths.
He said: “The fire has been brought under control, while casualty evacuation has been concluded.
“Three suicide bombers came into the city through Damboa around 3:00 am (0200 GMT) and they were spotted by civilians.
“They quickly ran and hid under three petrol tankers, where one of them detonated his explosives, killing all of them.”
The attack came just days before a delegation of the U.N. Security Council is due in Maiduguri as part of a four-nation tour of countries in the Lake Chad Basin devastated by the seven-year Boko Haram uprising that has killed more than 20,000.
Yesterday, the Security Council members were in Cameroon for meetings with top officials and an encounter with the multinational force that has been fighting Boko Haram extremists.
