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Nigeria: A bloody 50th anniversary of independence.

By on October 4, 2010
The Nigerian authorities have launched a major manhunt to trace the perpetrators of the double car bomb attack on the 50th anniversary of independence.

Police in Nigeria said the death toll from Friday’s car bombs in Abuja has risen to 12.  The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed the action and said that the double attack was a single event that does not announce a wave of violence. The MEND declared it set off the bombs because Nigeria has nothing worth celebrating after 50 years of failure. Other voices added that Nigeria has nothing positive to celebrate, because after half a century of independence, the country is still among the most corrupt and the less developed nations in the world. A former leader of the MEND, Henry Okah, was arrested and will be kept in custody by the South African Police for 48 hours. He was invited for questioning after pressure from the Nigerian government, the MEND has added. Henry Okah was arrested in Angola three years ago and was transferred to Nigeria. He was released under the amnesty program offered to all the militants of the Niger Delta, considered as the heart of Nigeria’s oil industry. Thousands of activists have benefited of the proposed amnesty, last year, by former first university-educated president of Nigeria, Umaru Yar’Adua. The double attack on Friday was the first action taken by the MEND in Abuja, the Nigerian capital. It comes after a lull of the attacks following the amnesty. Despite the bloody double attack, the independence celebrations were not interrupted, including the military parade organised for the event.

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