Thugery in Niger: Police kill two persons, arrest six suspects

No fewer than two people were reportedly killed, with several others injured, while properties worth millions of naira were destroyed following the recent escalation of youth restiveness in Maitumbi area of Minna, in Bosso local government area of Niger state.

It was gathered that properties, which include private cars, motorcycles, tricycles, shops, among others, were destroyed by said feuding youths who were said to have used dangerous weapons, stones, cutlasses, machetes, and long knives to carry out their nefarious activities in the area when the crisis lasted on the fateful Friday evening.

Further checks revealed that the miscreants did not spare even the security agents, women, and underaged children who used the opportunity to be involved in the looting of people’s properties, snatching telephone handsets, jewelries, unspecified sums of money, and other valuable personal effects from their victims.

Sources close to the scenes of the unfortunate youth restiveness said this has become an annual recurring decimal, noting that immediately after every Eid-el-Fitr (Sallah celebrations), this kind of youth restiveness will surface, and innocent citizens usually become victims of the violent attacks, whereby innocent passersby and motorists were either killed or fatally injured, and they were not likely to be compensated by either the state or local governments.

One of the victims, Mrs. Alofetekun, the widow of the late former Correspondent of The Guardian newspapers in Niger state, Mr. Akinade Alofetekun, told journalists in Minna last weekend that she was in Maitumbi uphill for a special prayer session where her car was completely destroyed/vandalized by the hoodlums.

Residents have, however, pleaded with the state governor, Hon Mohammed Umaru Bago, to urgently do what is necessary to end the consistent youth restiveness in Minna and its environs, which has now become out of control by the hands of the local government councils, which are handicapped and hopeless on the matter.

Sequel to the occurrences, the Niger State Governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago, has declared a State of Emergency on thuggery, noting that his administration has zero tolerance for rascality, criminality, and thuggery in the state.

When contacted, Niger state police command Public Relations Officer, SP Wasiu Abiodun, confirmed that two persons were killed and 6 suspects have been arrested so far in connection with the incident, while police monitoring teams were still ongoing to apprehend other fleeing suspects who had earlier escaped arrests by the police by the whiskers.