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Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria's secret
police have arrested and charged 45 suspects over an alleged Boko Haram plot to
attack the country's financial hub, Lagos, sources with knowledge of the matter
told AFP on Sunday.
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| Akinwumi Ambode, Governor of Lagos state |
"About 60 suspects were picked
up from different locations in Lagos by the Department of State Services acting
on intelligence information they were planning to attack Dolphin Estate in
Ikoyi last month," said one source, referring to an upscale area of Lagos.
Both sources, who asked not to be
identified for security reasons, said some of the suspects were released after
preliminary investigations, while 45 others were taken to a magistrate court on
Friday.
"They were arraigned on
holding charges. The DSS urged the court to remand them in prison pending
further investigation and their eventual arraignment before a high court,"
said a source.
Dolphin Estate is a gated community
on the Ikoyi island, which is home to wealthy Nigerians as well as expatriate
workers, many of them in the oil and gas industry.
Any attack on Lagos, which drives
Nigeria's economy and is seen by many foreign governments as a gateway to West
Africa, would likely send shock waves through both.
Lagos State Information
Commissioner Steve Ayorinde on Saturday called for the public's help in
ensuring the safety of the megacity's 20 million-strong population.
"Our appeal goes to every
school, housing estates, religious houses, markets and shopping complexes,
hotels and restaurants and sporting arenas to take issues of security and
personal safety more seriously these days and to work with both the government
and security agencies in promptly reporting any persons with suspicious
activities or unusual gatherings that may compromise security," he said.
"Care must also be taken in
how domestic servants and house aides are also employed," he added in a
statement.
Boko Haram, which wants to carve
out a hardline Islamic state in Nigeria's northeast, has threatened to move
south to spread its six-year-old insurgency in the country.
The capital, Abuja, has been hit
several times, most recently on October 2 when three suicide bombers killed 18
in two satellite towns -- while Lagos was attacked last June.
The car bombing, near fuel depots
and the city's main port, killed at least four and although denied by the
authorities, was claimed by Boko Haram's shadowy leader, Abubakar Shekau.
In one propaganda video, Shekau
threatened to hit Nigeria's oil-producing south.
Security analysts said at the time
the Lagos bombing was likely to have been carried out by a small group of Boko
Haram sympathisers, with no direct link to the group's high command.
- Military checkpoint targeted -
President Muhammadu Buhari, who came
to power in May on a promise of crushing Boko Haram, has given his military
commanders until the end of the year to bring the insurgency to a close.
That has led to a slew of
announcements, particularly from the military, about progress in the counter-insurgency.
But at the same time suicide
attacks and bombings against "soft" civilian targets have continued.
Nearly 170 people have been killed this month and more than 1,420 since Buhari
came to power, according to an AFP tally.
At least 58 people were killed on
Friday in blasts at two mosques in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, and the
capital of neighbouring Adamawa state, Yola.
On Sunday, four suicide bombers
attempting to blow up a military checkpoint in Maiduguri were killed when their
car exploded, local vigilantes, assisting the military in the fight against
Boko Haram told AFP.
"Around 1:30 pm, a Golf car
carrying four people exploded just before the Jimtilo military checkout, on the
outskirts of Maiduguri," vigilante Baba Kura said.
"We mobilised to the scene
along with military personnel and we discovered the explosion was caused by
explosives and the car was engulfed in flames,"
Another vigilante Umar Sani gave a
similar account of the incident.
"A car exploded just befoe
reaching a military checkpoint. All the four occupants of the car died from the
explosion," he said.
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