Fifteen people have reportedly been killed by gunmen suspected to be bandits in Ukuru village in Mariga Local Government Area of Niger State.
According to information gathered from the area, those killed were mostly men who were met at a tea joint eating breakfast.
It was said that the gunmen who invaded the village on motorbikes started shooting sporadically and in the process left 15 people, mostly male, dead.
It was, however, observed that the attack could be a reprisal because a few days before the incident, men of the local vigilante had repelled an attack by the bandits and reportedly killed four of them.
A witness said the attackers waited for most of the able-bodied men of the village to go to the farm before launching the attack.
Effort to secure confirmation from the police was not successful as their spokesman, ASP Wasiu Abiodun, did not respond to calls and an SMS to his cell phone.
Officials of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA) were also not available for comment as they were said to have gone on an inspection tour of flooded areas in Suleja.
On Thursday, the Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, was reported to have commended the effort of security operatives in the fight against banditry in the Sahel Operation.
Gov. Bello, in a statement, had said life was returning to normal in some hitherto bandits-infected areas because people were now going to their farms and taking part in other businesses.
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