President Goodluck Jonathan criticised Wednesday the politicisation of last week’s independence day bombings and denied absolving a rebel group that claimed responsibility, officials said.
Jonathan said everything possible would be done to find those behind the October 1 blasts that killed 12 people and wounded scores a few hundred metres (yards) from the independence parade in the capital Abuja.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility but Jonathan, who also hails from the Niger Delta, has blamed “a small terrorist group that resides outside Nigeria.”
“Mr President reassured cabinet members that the security agencies will do everything possible to fish out the perpetrators of the car bombing incident,” Information Minister Dora Akunyili said after a weekly cabinet meeting.
Jonathan, who is standing in next year’s elections, has been accused by his political opponents, the media and commentators of openly exonerating the rebel group.
But he said on this Facebook page, which was quoted in a statement from his office Wednesday, that it was unfortunate the attacks had been “politicised by people whose only interest is what they can get from the country.”
His presidential campaign team said in another statement that Jonathan had not absolved MEND of culpability as alleged by his political opponents who, it said, were trying to politicise the attacks.
Jonathan had said the “terrorist act should not merely be ascribed to MEND”, the statement said.
“He was not absolving MEND or any other group of blame or culpability,” it said.
A former MEND leader was arrested in South Africa, where he lives, a day after the blasts.
Henry Okah has claimed that Jonathan’s aides tried to make him pressure MEND, based in the country’s south, to retract its claim of responsibility for the attacks so the blame could put on politicians from the north.
Jonathan’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is divided over whether to support him or a candidate from the mainly Muslim north for next year’s presidential elections.
An unwritten PDP policy has long dictated that the party rotate its candidates between the Muslim north and predominantly Christian south every second term as a way of smoothing over ethnic, religious and social divides in the vast west African country.
Nine suspects, said to be linked to Okah, have been arrested in Nigeria for the blasts.
Former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida’s campaign chief for next year’s presidential elections, Raymond Dokpesi, has also been questioned by state intelligence agents.
Jonathan met Tuesday with former MEND militants who told him that they had no role in the attacks, a meeting the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) said was “choreographed to support the president’s earlier claim.”