Buhari orders swift response as bandits abduct scores in Zamfara village

Suspected bandits on Thursday stormed Nahuche village in Bungudu local government area of Zamfara state and abducted residents including women.

Residents told our correspondent that the armed men stormed the village and started firing shots in the air.

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“We were all scared and there was pandemonium in the community as everyone was running helter-skelter. The armed criminals came on motorbikes but stationed them at the outskirts of the community and marched into the village”

“We can’t give the exact number of people kidnapped now but some of our women were among the victims and we have alerted the security operatives to go after them,” a resident said.

Meanwhile, governor Bello Muhammad Matawalle said he received a text message concerning the attack.

Matawalle spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting in Gusau.

Buhari orders speedy response

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the National Security Adviser (NSA), retired Major-General Babagana Monguno to coordinate an immediate response to rising cases of bandit attacks on communities in Zamfara State.

President Buhari, in a statement issued on Thursday by his media aide, Garba Shehu, ordered that there must be a clear pathway to ending the resurgent banditry that had continued to cost lives and the displacement of thousands of families from their towns and villages.

The statement recalled that the Speaker of the Zamfara State House of Assembly, Hon. Nasir Magarya, recently wrote a letter in which he appealed to President Buhari to intervene and stop the incessant killings by bandits in the State.

In this respect, the presidential spokesman said a meeting will soon to take place that will deliberate on security and the issue of illegal mining fueling the crisis in Zamfara State.

He said that aside the NSA, the meeting will also be attended by retired Major-General Bashir Magashi, Ogbeni Ra’uf Aregbesola and Architect Olamilekan Adegbite, Ministers of Defence, Interior, and Mines and Steel respectively.

He added that the meeting will also be attended by the Directors-General of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

The presidency said that beyond the problems of bandits and cattle rustlers, the scale of lawlessness has been aggravated by illegal miners who are harvesting resources they have no legal rights to exploit.

It said official statistics suggest that there are more than 20,000 such miners undermining this important part of the economy, operating in a manner that is extraordinarily harmful and destructive, stressing that “the result is chaos”.

The Presidency said the meeting is expected to address these and associated issues of corruption, government oversight and lawlessness.