Nigeria mourns victims after terrorist attacks

LAGOS, Nigeria – With little to celebrate, Nigerians marked Easter Sunday with heightened security against a spreading Islamic uprising, mourning the deaths of at least 75 bomb blast victims and fearful of the fate of 85 abducted schoolgirls.

The homegrown terrorist network Boko Haram on Saturday claimed responsibility for last week’s rush-hour explosion at a busy bus station in the capital, Abuja, and threatened more attacks.

“We are the bombers … yes we are the bombers; if you really want to know who did it, let me tell you now, it was Shekau that did it,” leader Abubakar Shekau boasts in a new video.

He taunts Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan, saying: “Look at us, we are right within your city (Abuja) and you don’t even know how to find us. Let me tell you now, I am here very close to you, I dare you to get me, if you can.”

Nigeria’s military twice have claimed that Shekau was dead, only to have him resurface in a video. The United States has placed a $7 million ransom on his head.

At church services around the country, Nigerians mourned victims of four attacks in three days last week.

“Government should be more sincere in handling the security and insurgency problems,” Okeoghene Eboibi, a 45-year-old polytechnic lecturer in southern Delta state told the Associated Press.

He was referring to politicization of the 5-year-old Islamic uprising that has the two main political parties accusing each other of backing the terrorist network as the country gears up for elections in February 2015.