Nigeria’s secret service will hold four suspects in last week’s car bomb attacks for a further two weeks for questioning in an investigation which has ratcheted up tensions ahead of presidential elections next year.
According to Reuter, the State Security Service (SSS) won a court order allowing it to hold on to the four suspects, whom it did not identify, while it probes the attacks near an independence day parade in the capital Abuja last week, which killed at least 10 people.
“The four suspects should be remanded in the custody of the State Security Service for two weeks for further investigation,” Chief Magistrate Oyeyeola Oyewumi told a court in Abuja.
The bombs have brought regional rivalries in Africa’s most populous nation to the top of the political agenda ahead of what was already set to be the most fiercely contested presidential race since the end of military rule a decade ago.
President Goodluck Jonathan is fighting for the ruling party’s nomination, but his bid is contentious because of an unwritten agreement that power should rotate between the North and South every two terms.
The Abuja bombs were claimed by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main rebel group in Jonathan’s southern home region.
MEND’s claim was an embarrassment to Jonathan, who helped broker an amnesty in the oil-producing region last year. He said the blasts had nothing to do with the Niger Delta and MEND’s name had been used as a cover.
The secret service declined to comment on whether the four suspects being held in Nigeria were Okah’s associates.
“Investigations continue. We can’t give you their names now because we don’t want other suspects who are not in our net to run,” an SSS official said, asking not to be named.
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