The exact number of casualties arising from the recent dastardly bomb attack on Kano Central Mosque was not immediately ascertained even after the dust had finally settled. However, the Governor of Kano State, Engineer Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, has put the figures at 100 while unofficial estimates say it is 200 with hundreds of people seriously wounded and many others missing. It wasn’t clear who was responsible for that madness, and the Boko Haram insurgents, widely suspected to have done it, did not claim responsibility as it was accustomed for doing so in similar situations in the past.
The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II who was visiting a foreign country when the incident happened hurriedly returned and drove straight from the a Kano International Airport to the site of the ultra-modern mosque that replaced the ancient one put up by a sixteenth century emir Muhammadu Rumfa. Emir Sanusi was thoroughly disturbed by the gory sight at the mosque where guiltless worshippers were mercilessly cut down while supplicating their creator. The interior of the sacred mosque was speckled and marked with streaks of the blood of the innocent souls whose severed limbs and belongings were strewn away carelessly and dismally in and around the hallowed premises. There were also carcasses of dozens of burnt motorcycles and cars that littered the area as well as the scorched spots were the bodies of some of the attackers have been cremated.
Speaking at the site, with a cracked and tearful voice, Emir Sanusi prayed for the repose of the departed and sympathized with their bereaved relatives whose pains and anguish for loosing their dear ones must be extremely unbearable. He prayed that Allah will give them the fortitude to bear the irreparable losses.
Emir Sanusi revealed that the sacrilegious attack on the mosque was carefully planned for two months and was only executed on the fateful Friday. He dismissed insinuations that it was sparked by his recent comments while delivering pre-congregational prayer sermon in the same mosque on a preceding Friday, urging Nigerians to prepare to defend themselves in the wake of incessant attacks from heartless and intrepid insurgents since the government security forces have not been able to contain their vicious assaults on defenseless populace. However, the Emir had utterly dismissed widespread speculations that the attack was in retaliation to that call. Nevertheless, he maintained that the blast was intended to intimidate Nigerian Muslims into abandoning their obligatory, mass prayers at noon on Fridays or into abandoning Islam, insisting that they will never be intimidated or cowed by that.
Emir Sanusi also led senior officials of Kano Emirate Council on a sympathetic visit to Murtala Hospital were the victims are receiving medical attention. He painstakingly strolled into all the wards were they have been admitted, moving from one patient to another, listening with rapt attention and compassion, the shocking and dreadful narrations from the lucky survivors of the coordinated bomb and gun attacks. He later donated N20 million for the procurement of medication and other essential commodities for the patients.
He also instructed the Emirate Council’s official in charge of the city administration to ensure that the damages to the desecrated mosque be cleaned and purified, making it fit for prayers with immediate effect, enjoining the people not to surrender or stop pursuing their legitimate business at market places, offices or prayer grounds. Emir Sanusi has been universally commended for that exemplary act of compassion and concert shown to his subjects at a time when northerners are vilifying their leaders for forsaking them while pursuing their own personal agenda. Apart from Muhammad Sanusi II no other northern leader has even stuck his neck out in urging his people to mobilize towards defending themselves through legal and other acceptable means from possible attacks from the seemingly unstoppable terrorists. The disconcerting silence of northern leaders and their disturbing indifference to what is happening in most parts of the region have combined to compel the masses into believing that their leaders are complicit in the apparent move to break its spirit, economy and political capacity. Perhaps that is a cogent and valid explanation of the lack of concern and sympathy on the part of the leaders which also suggested that they have also abandoned their own people.
It is instructive that the never-ending attacks perpetrated in the name of the so-called Boko Haram have nothing to do with religion but politics, since the skirmishes have only been restricted to the north and were never extended to other parts of the country with appreciable number of Muslims. Similarly, no adherents of Islam elsewhere have ever been involved in such insanity and stupidity. At first, the attacks were mainly directed at Christians in their worshipping places and the horrid deed was blamed on the so-called Islamists insurgents, but subsequently these purported Islamists launched more vicious attacks on Muslims, not only in their worshipping places but in other places where they recreate or carry out worldly or mundane affairs. Whatever was the motive behind these ungodly attacks they have failed to achieve the desired objectives for precipitating them.
