Nigeria army discover explosives-laden truck

(AFP) – 1 hour ago

KANO, Nigeria — Soldiers in atense central Nigerian region intercepted a truck-load of explosives heading into the violence-wracked city of Jos, scene of deadly Christmas Eve bombings, an army chief said Saturday.
The discovery of explosives in Jos late Friday, came ahead of general elections due to start on April 2.
"The truck was stopped at a checkpoint just outside Jos by our men who discovered large amount of explosives in sealed cartons," Brigadier General Hassan Umaru, who heads a special military operation in Jos, told AFP.
The driver, policeman in civilian clothes who accompanied the consignment and the consignee, have been arrested as an investigation has been opened, he said.
Umaru said the seized articulated truck was carrying hundreds of cartons with some 50,000 cortex fuses, 5,000 pieces of electric detonators and 15,000 kilogrammes of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser also used to manufacture home-made bombs.
He said the truck was coming from northern Kaduna state and the driver and the policeman conveying the explosives claimed they were delivering the consignment to a company in Jos.
"We are in a very serious security situation in Plateau. This is not the place where such should be done and this is not the time as we approach a very delicate period... an election is at hand," said Umaru.
But a senior police office in charge of anti-bomb squad, Ambrose Aisabor, accused the army of being "mischievous" in handling the issue, saying that the construction company that owned the consignment was licensed to deal in explosives.
"Explosives are used in aviation, road construction, oil companies to blast stones and the company has the proper licence to do the business. This is a cheap propaganda...," he told journalists in Jos.
"If not that they want to be mischievous, what they should have done was to ask questions and why the policemen was in mufti," Aisabor said.
Central Nigeria has been hit by waves of violence involving Christian and Muslim ethnic groups in recent years that have killed scores of people.
In Plateau State, part of the so-called middle belt between the mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south, deadly clashes have frequently broken out.
A series of Christmas Eve bomb blasts in Jos and resulting unrest left dozens dead.
The European Union early in February said violence in central and northern Nigeria killed at least 300 in six weeks.
Much of the violence has been attributed to a struggle for economic and political power between the Christian Berom ethnic group, viewed as indigenous to the region, and Hausa-Fulani Muslims, seen as more recent arrivals.
Jos, capital of Plateau State, and its environs have been hit by waves of violence involving Christian and Muslim ethnic groups in recent years that has left hundreds of people dead.
The state is located in the so-called middle belt between the mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south of Africa's most populous nation.