•Says FG won’t allow reign of terror to subsist
•El-Rufai rules out amnesty, negotiations with gunmen
Omololu Ogunmade in Abuja and John Shiklam in Kaduna
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday offered comfort to the people of two local government areas in Kaduna State where bandits killed 50 people on Sunday and injured scores of others.
The president, who condoled with the bereaved family and sympathised with the injured, in a statement by presidential spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, assured the people of Kaduna State and other parts of the country that his government would continue to deploy all resources at its disposal to fight bandits and wipe them out.
The state Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, who also visited the affected communities in Igabi and Giwa Local Government Areas, foreclosed the possibility of his administration negotiating with the gunmen or granting them amnesty.
The bandits were said to have invaded 13 villages in Kerawa Ward, where 50 people were killed while scores of others sustained injuries.
The villages were said to have been razed down by the bandits who, sources said, were probably on a revenge mission.
Some of the affected villages include Zareyawa, Kerawa, Marina Rago, Hashimawa, and Unguwar Barau villages, all in Kerawa Ward.
Thousands of women and children in the affected communities were said to have relocated to a primary school in Birnin Yero for refuge.
Reacting to the attack yesterday, Buhari expressed regrets about the incident, saying he was deeply saddened by the latest banditry.
According to the president, from available reports, the bandits are deliberately venting their fury and frustration on innocent people as a result of the ongoing military and police offensive against them in the Birnin Gwari and Kaduru forests.
He said the federal government would resist orchestrated moves by criminals to blackmail it to abandon the current military operations meant to crush them.
“These criminals should make no mistake that they can establish a reign of terror on the people without feeling the full might of the government, which was elected to protect the citizens,” the statement quoted the president as saying.
Buhari said his administration would double efforts to fish out the bandits and make them pay for their crimes.
“The criminals cannot be lucky always; we are determined to frustrate and defeat them; and no matter how long they run or where they hide, they would be smoked out and brought to justice.”
The governor, during a visit to the communities, said security agencies had been directed to wipe out the bandits.
El-Rufai said: “In Kaduna State, we don’t give bandits amnesty and we don’t negotiate with them.
“It is our duty to wipe them until we send them to their maker. The security agencies are taking the war to the forest and we are eliminating them.”
According to him, shortly after the bandits started the attack, there was security intervention both on the ground and in the air in which they were wiped out.
“The security agencies are doing the best they can, but they find it difficult to get to remote areas in good time due to poor access roads while the native also find it difficult to alert security agencies due to poor GSM network.
“But I am grateful to the Air Force, Army, Police and DSS for being always prompt. It would have been worse. If not for their prompt intervention, they would have wiped out the entire villages. But people are still here. I also come to apologise to the community for failing them fully. We are doing our best to minimise the situation. We are hoping that this bandit issue will be addressed because security agents are on ground to manage the situation,” the governor said.
He said Kaduna had vast land, adding that “if the security closed one area, they attack another area.”
The governor called on the people to continue to be patient and vigilant and “continue to forgive us where we have failed to fully protect them, but nevertheless, we will continue to do our best”.
He expressed condolences to the bereaved families and directed the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) to provide relief materials to displaced victims.
Earlier, the District Head of Karewa, Alhaji Ibrahim Damu, appealed to the state government to intensify efforts in tackling security challenges in the area.
He lamented the persistent invasion and kidnappings in the communities, saying, economic and social activities had been destroyed.
The governor was accompanied by the Kaduna State Police Commissioner, Mr. Ali Janga; the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 1 Division, Nigerian Army, Maj. Gen. Faruk Yahaya; and the Kaduna State Director of DSS.
The spokesman of the Kaduna State Police Command, Mr. Muhammad Jalige, however, said he was not in a position to ascertain the number of people killed in the attack.
“The community said 50 people were killed, but from our side, we are yet to ascertain the casualty figures. We have confirmed that the attacks happened on Sunday and we have deployed our men in the affected areas and investigations are ongoing,” he said.
A councilor, representing Kerawa Ward, Alhaji Daiyibu Kerawa, described the attack as unprecedented and pleaded with the president, to as a matter of urgency, come to the aid of the people in the community by deploying security personnel in the area.
He said the bandits arrived in Karewa at 6 a.m. on Sunday after burning down other villages and unleashing mayhem on the people.
In an interview with the Hausa Service of the Voice of America (VOA), the Councilor said: “What happened was unprecedented. We have never seen such kind of horror in our lives.
These killers are Boko Haram. They stormed our village killing indiscriminately; they spared nobody; the young, the old, even Almajiris were not spared. They continued to shoot people, setting fire on the dead and on property. It was extremely horrific!’ They went from one room to the other; a man and his children were killed, even newborn babies. We have over 50 dead now; we are yet to bury them. It will take hours to bury the dead.
“We are appealing to the federal government to please, pay attention to the situation in Igabi Local Government Area, especially Igabi West. President Buhari should come to our rescue. Please deploy security agents that can do this work, those earlier stationed here never stayed. We all must die one day and return to Almighty Allah, even the bandits were saying so. Therefore, the government should fear Allah. We are in a terrible situation.
“If we start this funeral now, we will not finish till midnight. We saw a plane, but it just passed like it was flying to Makkah. These killers are not just bandits, they are Boko Haram. They did not steal anything. They just killed and burnt peoples’ belongings.”
Massive security has been deployed in the communities in the two local government areas.
In his reaction to the killing, a former senator who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial Zone, Senator Shehu Sani, condemned it and called on Northern governors to wake up to their responsibility to protect the people.
In a statement yesterday in Kaduna, Sani said the killing of innocent people in Kerawa village and surroundings by suspected bandits were unwarranted.
He accused Northern governors of being afraid of confronting the federal government and taking independent action to protect their people and stop the rising wave of killings and kidnappings in the region.
He said: “Killings and kidnappings have become daily occurrences in Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and Niger states.
Northern governors are still playing the ostrich; afraid of confronting the federal government and taking independent action to protect their people while the killings and the kidnappings go on.
“The North has become a region of endless funerals and perpetual bereavement. Bandits in the North have become a state; they impose fines and taxes, send notices, control spaces, determine life and death and operate without much challenge.
“Banditry has further impoverished the North and turned it into a cemetery. The lives of ordinary people in the North have become cheap, dispensable, disposable and ordinary.
The pervasive insecurity in the north is reinforced and sustained by the silence and sycophancy of its elites as much as the inaction of the government. Muslims are not much being seen as victims of the killings in the North because many Islamic leaders prefer to massage the image of the government in the face of the killings of their followers while Christian clerics are leading protests in the streets. The North must wake up, buckle up or perish.”
