How bandits who killed our district head came back to kill our people

MARUF OLAKUNLE reports the situations of some villagers in Sokoto State who were sacked from their homes by rampaging bandits and their inability to access their farms and tend to their crops, as well as engage in other businesses.

FOR years banditry in form of robbery attacks, cattle rustling and kidnapping for ransom has become a regular occurrence in Zamfara State. It has become a nagging headache to the state’s administrators the same way that Boko Haram and herdsmen attacks have become serious issues in the nation. The efforts of the state government to end  the criminality have done little to curb the activities of the bandits.

However, the neighbouring states of Kebbi and Sokoto which had hitherto felt shielded from banditry are now beginning to feel the heat. Sokoto State was in penultimate week attacked by invading armed bandits, who killed about 39 people in the process.

The security challenge in the North-West beginning from Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State, which later took root in Anka, spreading to Dansadau, Maru, Maradau and some other villages in Zamfara State, is now spreading to other places. This, Sunday Tribune investigation revealed could be  due to the efforts of the security agencies to dislodge them, which have made the marauders to be running to other places. The recent attack, which was the invasion of Tabanni village, a border town between Sokoto and Zamfara states.

 

Narrow escape

Eyewitnesses told Sunday Tribune that the victims were taken unawares by the bandits. According to one of the victims, “the attackers came on more than 100 motorcycles with sophisticated weapons and killed anyone in sight.

“They did not kidnap people or rustle animals, as they used to do. Their mission this last time was to kill anybody in sight.? We don’t know what they wanted. It was devastating,” she narrated.

Villages attacked are Alliki, Birwanga, Tabanni Gera all in Rabah Local Government Area of Sokoto State, and Kozi, in Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State, which they used as their launch pad..

A source in the Internally Displaced person camp where victims of the attack now live disclosed that the bandits’ attack could be a form of retaliation as some members of the gang were killed when they attacked the village some time back.

Narrating her ordeal, another victim, pregnant at the time of the attack, was lucky because she is alive today to tell her story. She not only escaped the attack but was safely delivered of a baby girl at the IDP camp.

The mother of new baby, Saratu Atiku, who is still traumatised by the event, told Sunday Tribune that she was lucky to have escaped the attack with her husband and three children. She, however, appealed to kind-hearted individuals for assistance in catering for her new baby.

Meanwhile, as a result of the attack, over 200 persons who had abandoned their homes, farms and scampered to safety but now quartered at the IDP camp are currently lamenting their forceful relocation, regretting that it could hamper their rainy season farming activities.

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A source who spoke to our correspondent, under the condition of anonymity, at the IDP camp located inside Gandi Primary School, said the killers were the same bandits who had been terrorising neighbouring Zamfara State.

“They are hiding in Maradun forest, which is their hideout, from where they launch their operations and attacks. On several occasions, they kidnap our people and demand ransom for their release or steal our animals, with serious warning not to inform security agencies.

“The death of our district head, Alhaji Shehu Marafa, at their hands was the last straw that made us to say ‘enough’ of their harassment,’ ?unfortunately they revisited us with killings.” the source stated.

Even the state governor, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, was visibly shaken by the tragedy, even as the news reverberated across the nation. While addressing the All Progressives Congress governors who came to commiserate with him, Alhaji Tambuwal described the attack as tragic and the first of such in the state.

“We buried 32 people, but when we were leaving the area, they brought additional seven bodies with one severely damaged, which brought the total number of dead to thirty-nine,” Tambuwal explained to his visitors.

Sunday Tribune learnt that the military has intensified efforts to flush out the bandits from the area and their other hideouts in the North-West. Insider sources revealed that the last attack was ostensibly  the outcome of the dislodgement of the bandits after facing the superior firepower of the security agencies, most especially officers of the Nigeria Army 1 Brigade of Split, which has been tackling the bandits in Zamfara State.

A top military source in1 Brigade of the army in Sokoto, told Sunday Tribune that the military was forced to launch deadly onslaught against the criminals as a result of the increasing criminalities of the bandits. Their attacks, it was learnt, had increased from merely rustling cows to kidnapping of the cattle owners and asking  them to sell their cattle to pay their way to freedom.

“It was when the army rose up to the challenge and the bandits found out that Zamfara State was becoming too hot for them that they began to move out and launch attacks outside the state. That is why we are now experiencing what we saw in Sokoto recently,” a military  source told Sunday Tribune.

The source further disclosed that the command had concluded arrangements to launch an operational task force to contain the bandits and end the killings of innocent Nigerians and any hostility being experienced in the North-West.

 

A plea for help

Life, however, has not been the same for IDPs. They have had to rely on assistance and donation of relief materials from Nigerians. Senators Aliyu Wamakko and Ibrahim Gobir had visited the camp, donating cash, food items and other materials to the victims. The National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, Prince Uche Secondus and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as well as a former governor of the state, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa,  alongside other notable Nigerians had also paid a visit to the governor as well as reached out to the IDPs.

Speaking with Sunday Tribune, the Director-General, State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Ibrahim Dingyadi said, “The IDP camp was not meant to be there forever, as the villagers are expected to return home soon.

“From the initial 10,000 people registered when we opened the camp, records available indicates that the population at the camp is reducing, meaning that people are willing to return home.”

The Police Public Relations Officer of the state police command, DSP Cordelia Nwawe, told Sunday Tribune that the command was ready to secure the lives of all residents in the state. According to her,  the command was doing all within its capability to forestall a recurrence of the attack.

“I can confirm to you that right now, two units of mobile policemen had been deployed to the entire area. This is enough to tell you that, we are on top of the situation. Similarly, one hundred of our personnel are already in Gandi, where the IDP camp is located,” DSP Nwawe disclosed.

Now that the initial fear and tension created by the bandits’ attack had died down, it is rational that it is only when there is assurance of full protection of local communities and total eradication of the menace of banditry in Zamfara and its neighbouring states that such attacks as recorded in Sokoto State would become a thing of the past.