The state government and the state's police command have ruled out any possibility of a terrorist attack, as the state police commissioner linked it to a bad day for suspected armed robbers on a failed robbery operation.
But the incident, which seemed to many eyewitnesses around the scene of the incident as a replica of recent Boko Haram generated bomb blasts in some northern states of the country, sent panic round the city and some other parts of the state.
According to an eyewitness who gave his name as Emmanuel Okon, the bus, which was coming from the Choba axis of the East-West Road, broke down around the Rumuokoro Junction, prompting the four occupants of the vehicle to come down to request help to push it.
It was pushed across the road to the section facing Eliozu, when it suddenly exploded, killing one person close by and injuring three of the people pushing it.
"The vehicle was coming this way from Choba side; it stopped there and two young men came down, dressed normal, but were holding chaplets in their hands. The driver called two sachet water [hawkers] boys to help him push the bus with the conductor, they pushed it down to this place.
"When they got here, they told the driver that smoke was coming out under the vehicle, so the driver said he wanted to check the head of the battery. As the two sachet water boys left, one guy who bought kunu here went over and that was when the bomb exploded," Okon said.
But the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Indabawa, while speaking with journalists at the site of the incident, ruled out suspicion of terrorism or that of Boko Haram detonating an explosive, noting that such bombs as suggested would have wreaked more havoc in a place as populated as the site of the incident.
Indabawa, who inspected the site and supervised the operations of the command's bomb disposal unit, said samples had been collected from the site and would be investigated, adding that though it would be hasty to arrive at conclusions, the command suspected that the occupants of the bus were suspected robbers, going for an operation, as four AK-47 rifles and ammunition were recovered from the charred vehicle.
"This is not a terrorist attack, I didn't tell you it is a bomb. If it is a bomb, you would have seen the impact on the road, all the houses around here would have been impacted, even the woman selling oranges here would have been impacted.
"Of course, ammunition could do this, but they might have had all the small dynamites. I wouldn't know exactly what happened here, but what I'm telling you is they were not terrorists. I'm sure they are robbers going for an operation and something went wrong for them and right for us," Indabawa said.
The state governor, Rotimi Amaechi, who visited the scene of the incident, also re-echoed the opinion of the police, saying it was an accident involving suspected robbers.
According to him, the explosion was not initiated by a bomb, but a mistake by a group of robbers riding in the bus, who apparently ignited their ammunition while smoking.
He reassured the people of the state that the government was doing enough to keep the city safe from terrorism and warned against presumptuous reprisal and undue sensationalism in the social media.
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