Gen. Buhari and Shiekh Bauchi on the same day? What would have been if the Kaduna explosions had found their targets

 Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, a Sufist leader in Nigeria finished prayers a few minutes before the first blast.

The attempts at the lives of Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi and General Muhammadu Buhari would have spelt one thing for Nigeria today. Implosion. The explosions would have set up a cataclysmic chain of events that will have reverberated across Nigeria. The reason is simple –when it comes to these two men, their followers are regard them as messiahs.

Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi was 87 years old in June, he is the head influential head of the Tarika Tijanniyah the Nigerian offshoot of the West African Tijanniyah sect with millions of followers not only in Nigeria but in the entire Maghreb region. He has been known to have condemned Boko Haram’s campaign of violence and has offered to mediate between the insurgents and the Federal Government. A couple of weeks ago a bomb blast in the same city of Kaduna was said to have targeted him. The Bomb explosion happened while he was acknowledging cheers from residents of Kaduna along the Isa Kaita and Ahmed Pategi roads. As at the time of writing this about 25 people had been confirmed dead at the scene of the explosion.
Nigeria’s main opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari was the target of the explosion around the popular
Kawo intersection. His convoy was also hit with a gale of bullets according to eye-witness accounts, two of his aides sustained injuries in the attack. While 15 people died in the blast as at the time of writing this, making a total of 40 from both blasts.
Leader of the Islamist Jihadist group Jamā’at ahl as-sunnah li-d-da’wa wa-l-Jihād, better known as Boko Haram, currently waging war against the Nigerian state, Abubakar Shekau has never hidden his disdain for clerics and leaders of Northern Nigeria; he claimed the killing of Sheikh Albani in the first quarter of this year. In one of his several video messages he had threatened to kill the Sultan of Sokoto and the late Emir of Kano. The Emir of Gwoza Idrissa Timta on the 30th of March 2014 was abducted and killed by insurgents in Borno State.
Motive? Being a Salafi movement, Boko Haram’s ideology is anti-ethical to the Bauchi’s Tijanniyah sect, while Buhari a retired soldier and former Head of State and latter day democrat has pledged to Nigeria as his country to “uphold its honour and glory” –in those words are the reasons why Shekau would want him dead.

General Buhari’s vehicle, moments after the blast. Image credit: Mercy Asu

However, it must be stated that other non-state actors cannot be ruled out of this near cataclysmic miss. At this point Nigeria’s counter insurgency strategy must change gears at this. Nigeria cannot afford an implosion as it struggles to uproot insurgent flags in places like Damboa. Today is another page in the violent narrative of the book of our lives.