A large number of bombs, especially Improvised Explosive Devices are defused on a daily basis in flashpoint areas like Kano, Borno, Yobe and Bauchi, a police official has said.

Nigeria Police Force spokesman, Mr. Frank Mba, confirmed in an interview with the punch that police also occasionally defused explosives in Plateau state.

The timing and locations of the explosives are often erratic, the police spokesman said, adding that the lack of a pattern of behavior with the sect’s attacks makes the job of curbing the violence more difficult.

He said, “We have pictures of different kinds of explosives we have defused. We defuse explosives every day, particularly in Yobe. Yesterday (last Thursday), we discovered a big paint container filled with IEDs. The voltage of the devices was so high that the devastating impact will be better imagined.

“The same is the case in Kano, Yobe, Borno, Bauchi and, occasionally, Plateau,” Mba said.

He added that there is a great deal of risk involved in defusing the bombs “because as we approach the device, a terrorist may be somewhere with the plan to press a button.”

The terrorists sects operate in different ways in different states, Mba explained, so the police has had to adapt.

“We have different policing strategies for different places. We have customised our plans for each of the states.”

He said security officials have had to learn flexibility in dealing with the sect.

“Sometimes the job is unpredictable. We might have planned to attend to something in Abuja but we would abandon the plan because there is an attack in Kano. Our men have been moving from one point to another.”

However, police officials can only do so much and the agency is short on personnel; they are calling on religious and traditional leaders to aid the war on terror.