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Police in Adamawa State on Friday averted a major disaster in Yola, the state capital, after operatives defused 19 high-caliber Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs) buried in a bush.
According to Adaji Gabriel, the state police commissioner, the IEDs could have destroyed a 10-storey building and could have consumed everything within a 200 meter radius.
The police boss said: “Police informants took our men to a bush in around Song Local Government where the hidden bomb materials were unravelled. “They wanted to launch an attack in the state capital.”
‘’They wanted to bomb the main bridge linking the state capital with the northern parts of the state.
‘’The IEDs are almost 90 per cent completed and only need to be connected to batteries to work, which may have been the worst hit in the North and the nation at large if it was not detected.
‘’We thank God for answering our prayers in Adamawa State. The discovery has prevented something that would have caused a hell of sorrows to the state.
‘’One of the bombs is capable of bringing down a 10 storey building. They aimed to destroy Jimeta in the state capital,”
In the words of the police commissioner, had the explosives gone off, “the state would have been brought down as they wanted to blow up vital and strategic structures including the more than one kilometer River Benue Bridge linking the state capital with northern parts of the state”.
He added: “The smallest among the bombs can completely destroy structures within 200 meter radius and on the verge of being transported to various parts of the state capital before they were discovered”