Story of Bauchi’s ‘Black Sunday’ – Bank staff may be involved – Investigation

Residents avoid popular joints and government establishment for fear of another attack. Rubble of structures hit by the assailants’ instruments of destruction, stick out like sore thumbs. Weekly Trust observed that Intercontinental and Guaranty Trust banks’ customers had to utilize sister banks in the town to transact business, owing to internal arrangement between the banks.  […]

Residents avoid popular joints and government establishment for fear of another attack. Rubble of structures hit by the assailants’ instruments of destruction, stick out like sore thumbs. Weekly Trust observed that Intercontinental and Guaranty Trust banks’ customers had to utilize sister banks in the town to transact business, owing to internal arrangement between the banks.  A resident, who simply referred to himself as Mr. Bilyaminu said, “People who have accounts with either GTB or Intercontinental go to Zenith Bank to withdraw cash. When we get there, they check our account numbers and verify them at our banks before paying us. The situation is being controlled gradually by the banks.”

 

At the township police station, a police source said that they relocated to the zonal headquarters following an order by the authorities over incessant attacks on police formations. “Three weeks after our movement from the township police station, this incident happened. The robbers blocked all routes leading to the places of operation and attacked major police stations, barracks and the headquarters, so that they might operate successfully. No one knows their exact target at the moment, until police investigation is completed.”

Gunmen, reportedly numbering almost a hundred in commando-style, visited terror on Azare, a town about 218 kilometres north of the Bauchi State capital, shortly after midnight on Saturday. They bombed the police area command and a nearby police station, reducing both to rubble. They also bombed and robbed local branches of the Guaranty Trust Bank and Intercontinental Bank. Witnesses said heavy gunfire trailed the attacks as the suspected armed robbers fired rocket launchers at police stations and banks.

A retired civil servant who gave his name as David Bukar told Weekly Trust that he first heard a gunshot in the neighbourhood some minutes after 11pm on Saturday. “It was followed by about forty seconds of silence that gave people the impression that nothing serious was happening. However, when the sound resumed in full force as if a shooting competition was on, all my family members gathered in a single room and held one another tightly and prayed to God.”

David equally gave an account of how one Muhammad Baba, 45, was burnt to death in the incident. According to him, Baba was a cleaner at the Zonal Headquarters in Azare and slept in the premises and held the keys to the offices. He was trapped in there during the attack. The next day, the deaf man was found dead in one of the rooms.

Gideon Garba, who runs a garment cleaning business, said that the robbers parked two Honda ‘Hennessy’ cars in front of one house and proceeded with the attacks. “I saw all of them wearing masks and moving confidently from one place to the other.”

Police authorities in the state put the causality figure at six. The commissioner of police in charge of the state, Ikechukwu Aduba confirmed the incident, saying a police officer, a soldier, a civilian and three gunmen were killed during the attack. “It’s a real war because the hoodlums invaded Azare in a large number.” He said rocket-propelled bombs were also launched from outside the area command’s headquarters building, leaving the structure destroyed. He said about 30 policemen on duty at the area command office responded and repelled the attackers.

Aduba added that the attack was launched simultaneously at six facilities, including the mobile police base, the area commander’s office, the police station and two banks. “Also, they attacked popular local thief-catcher Ali Kwara’s residence,” he said. Kwara has also served as security adviser to a minister of the FCT in 2007.

But a resident disagrees with the commissioner on the death toll from the attacks, saying the causality figure was under-represented, saying apart from policemen who were killed in the shootout with the gunmen, there were also detainees in police cells who were killed as the bombs exploded. He said that there were also newly transferred police personnel staying in the area and some of them might have been killed.

A new dimension to the saga, which many are saying resembles the modus operandi of the Boko Haram sect, emerged Thursday when the police in the state alleged conspiracy between the attackers and some officials of the affected banks, raising concern whether it was indeed carried out by members of the sect. Aduba told Weekly Trust that the incident was in connivance with some unscrupulous bank officials.  He said during the attack, “the sums of 7.3million and 25, 136, 750, 00 purportedly carted away by the hoodlums on the day of the invasion were well-removed in advance, and the bombing of the banks was merely a decoy meant to hoodwink security agents.”

Aduba said in one of the banks, where over N7m was taken, the vault was undamaged and the keys were still hanging on the locks on arrival of detectives, a clear pointer to a case of constructive breaking. He added: “When asked by detectives, the operational managers and accountant of banks who were supposed to be in custody of the vault keys said they received an anonymous call from a customer having problems with his ATM card and immediately they rushed down in aid of the distressed customer apparently with the vault keys in their pockets where upon they were held up at gun point and forced to open the vault and collected N7.3 million.”

Aduba continued: “They further told detectives that they forgot the vault keys in their various drawers after servicing the ATM machine with cash on Saturday few hours before the attacks.” He said their statements were watered down by statements of civilians and policemen on night duty.

Aduba also said in another bank where over N25m was stolen during the invasion, experts had revealed the damage and after effect of the expulsion as a manifestation of inter-connectivity of planted bombs within the banking hall programmed to detonate between 11:30am to midnight. The expulsion completely brought down the banking hall and mangled vaults under the intensive heat brought about by the blast. No human being could have entered the hall and survive the heat, let alone remove a lump sum like that.”

The police commissioner then told Weekly Trust that a report from the investigators suspected that a fumigation company invited by the bank to fumigate the bank premises left the bank premises by 5:30pm, few hours before the invasion and planted the programmed bombs. He said four of the bank officials of one of the two banks, from the evidence gathered, are positively culpable and are currently helping the police to tidy-up investigations, after which they will face the law.

The bank officials paraded by police in connection with the incident declined to comment on their arrest when Weekly Trust sought to know their position on the matter. “I will not talk until I contacted my lawyer,” said one of them.

Gunmen had in similar fashion invaded Misau, also in Bauchi State, sometime in September, 2011where they hurled four bombs at the police station, before going to the branch of Mainstream Bank, formerly Afribank, which they robbed, carting away about N19.2 million from its strong room. At the end of that attack, four policemen and a 45-year-old businessman, Musa Baba, were killed in the town, while the robbers killed another policeman at Azare while escaping from the area after the operation.

Like the recent Azare incident, the commissioner of police had alleged insider collaboration could not be ruled out, considering the manner in which the robbers operated. He noted: “While the bank manager escaped, two of the staff with keys to the strong room were on the ground to hand over said keys to the bandits with little or no threat,” he had noted.

The Azare operation brings to about seven the number of such incidents in what is geographically referred to as Bauchi North in months. A witness who simply gave his name as Ali said during the operation, the gang took the bodies of their colleagues who were killed during the shootout in their vehicles.

Another witness called Bilyaminu said if the attackers were Boko Haram members, they would have owned up to the attack by now. “Boko Haram always claims responsibility for their actions. If they were the ones, they would have responded to this one too.”