Today in Nigerian History: 21st July

army1

On this day in 2010, Nigeria laid out plans to bail out its badly struggling banks by removing up to 21 billion dollars in deadbeat loans from their balance sheets.

 

Also on this day in 2011,  a gun battle between soldiers and suspected Islamists broke out after a failed bomb attack in Maiduguri leaving one extremist dead.

On Thursday evening, an explosive device was hurled at a military patrol team by some suspected members of Boko Haram and Lt. Col. Hassan Isijeh Mohammed while speaking with AFP, the explosive missed its target and detonated without causing any casualties, prompting the attackers, suspected to be from the Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, to open fire on the patrol.

“The soldiers responded and one of the attackers was killed in the shootout, while the rest fled,”

“From all indications, the device exploded prematurely. We still don’t know what the target was and nobody has been arrested.”