Zamfara community seeks govt. intervention to free abductees

Members of Nahuche community in Zamfara on Sunday besieged the Government House, Gusau, to seek Gov. Bello Matawalle’s intervention in the release of 13 members of the community recently abducted by bandits.

Leader of the protesters, Malam Musa Abdullahi, who addressed journalists, said they were at the Government House to solicit for government’s intervention to rescue the  abductees.

Abdullahi said the community had suffered more than 13 attacks, lost more than 50 persons and have so far, spent over N200 million in the last two years as ransom and for settling Vigilante groups, but all to no avail.

“The situation has remained the same, despite spending over N200 million on ransoms and settling vigilantes,” he said.

Abdullahi, a former Chairman of the Bungudu local council, said five of the abductees had been held by the bandits for the past 33 days.

According to him, the sum of  five million naira ransom was paid as demanded by the bandits  but they declined to release the victims as they made fresh demands for two Boxer motorcycles, which were yet to be met.

“While working to meet the fresh demand of the motorcycles, the  bandits, again, stormed the community and kidnapped another eight persons.

“They are yet to communicate or make another demand from the community; we are waiting,” he said.

The former Chairman said the community of over 300,000 people was about to be deserted as the gunmen attacked the village frequently killing people at will.

“We have acknowledged the efforts of both State and Federal Government in tackling the security challenges, however,  Nahuche community needs urgent intervention to prevent the town from being deserted,” he said.

He urged the federal and the state governments to deploy the  military to the area to help their situation, before the bandits cleared their villages.

NAN recalls that at the 2022 Armed Forces Remembrance Day on Jan 15, Gov. Matawalle said the state governments and the security forces, so far, had rescued more than 1,800  abductees from the bandits.