Not fewer than eleven persons were reportedly killed in a fresh attack launched by armed bandits on nine villages of Kankara Local Government Area in Katsina State.
This was as angry residents in the area staged a protest with corpse of persons killed barricading for hours major highway linking to major parts of the state (the state capital and the southern part (Funtua axis).
Information gathered by our correspondent revealed that the bandits stormed the area by 5pm on Saturday evening and launched the attack on the villages.
Villages attacked include Pauwa, Katoge, Danhayi, Gidan Guge, Kaurawa, Jan Bago, Kadanya, Gidan Kwaki and Lambar Kantoma. Locals said the eleven persons killed – eight (8) and three (3) in Katoge and Yar kuka villages, respectively.
It was gathered that the protesters took the corpses to the palace of Sarkin Pauwan Katsina, Alhaji Yusuf Lawal and later to the Chairman of Kankara local government area, Hon. Anas Isah Kankara upon which they pleaded with the persons who succumb to the plea and funeral prayer was observed on the corpse and buried.
It was also gathered that the residents repelled the attack of the bandit in another village where they succeeded in killing two of the bandits.
The protest by the angry residents who barricaded the roads for hours also left commuters traveling along the route stranded as a result of a traffic jam. It took the intervention of security personnel to restore calm and open up the road while others diverted to take another route.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 people protested yesterday in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, calling for a ban on the anti-Boko Haram CJTF militia they accused of abuses after the killing of a rickshaw driver.
The protesters blocked major roads in the Suleimanti area of the city and set fires, causing chaos despite pleas from police and military officers, an AFP reporter at the scene saw.
“We want the CJTF to be banned from the city because of the abuses we suffer in their hands,” said Suleimanti resident Bukar Saleh.
“They have become a law unto themselves and are treating us badly. And now they have started killing us,” Saleh said. The CJTF militia tried to stop the demonstration, attacking protesters with batons and arresting scores of them. The protest erupted hours after a rickshaw driver was shot dead near a militia checkpoint.
“The victim was a known resident and his name was Modu but the CJTF just shot him for no reason,” Saleh said.
The CJTF insisted however that the victim was shot for failing to stop at a checkpoint during nighttime curfew hours.
The militia have intensified night patrols in the area in recent days following incursions by the jihadists.
“The driver’s refusal to stop raised the suspicion of our men and one of them took him down, because they believed he was a Boko Haram terrorist on a mission,” Babakura Abba-Ali, the CJTF head in Suleimanti area, said.
The militia man was handed over to the police for investigation, Abba-Ali added.
The CJTF emerged in 2013 as a vigilante group in response to Boko Haram’s deadly attacks in Maiduguri.
Young men and women mobilised and started going door-to-door hacking to death known Boko Haram members and forcing the jihadists to flee the city.
The vigilantes were later organised into a militia force and embedded with the military to fight the jihadist group.
Late Saturday, Boko Haram jihadists killed four people and looted food supplies when they raided Gamurari village, some 90 kilometres (60 miles) from Maiduguri, militia and residents said.
The decade-long Boko Haram conflict has killed at least 27,000 people and forced some two million to flee their homes in Nigeria alone. The violence has spilled into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military response to fight the jihadist group.
Following reinvigorated operational strategies and robust anti banditry operations injected in to the activities of Operation HARBIN KUNAMA III, troops have in renewed efforts arrested several gangs of bandits terrorizing Isa, Rabbah and Burkusuma communities around Sububu Forest in Sokoto State as well as in Batsari, Safana and Kankara in Dumburum Forest of Katsina State.
Similarly, troops deployed in Super Camp covering Bena, Jega, Danko and Wasagu encountered and annihilated uncomfirmed number of bandits and destroyed five bandits’ camps in Gando Forest of Kebbi State.
Briefing journalists on the activities of the operation, the General Officer Commanding (GOC), 8 Division, Nigerian Army, Maj-Gen Hakeem Otiki, said that five camps and 25 motorcycles were destroyed during the operation.
Otiki added that the operation which covers Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states witnessed series of successful simultaneous ground operations activities involving raids, ambushes, cordon and search with the occasional support of the Air Task Force component which the troops are poised to sustain.
The GOC further listed items recovered during the operation to include, 8 x AK-47 rifles, 2 x General Purpose Machine Guns, 2 x G3 rifles, 3 x dane guns, 9 x AK-47 magazines, and 48 x rounds of 7.62mm special ammunition.
According to him, “The operation is to facilitate the return of refugees and internally displaced persons back to their homes, creating enabling environment for economic activities to strive and instilled confidence in the locals to remain in their villages and continue their normal lives unmolested.
He assured the residents of the Nigerian Army readiness to provide adequate security and improve synergy and collaboration with other security agencies within 8 Division Area of Responsibility with the aim of Combating banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping and other security challenges.
Otiki used the opportunity to commend the gallant officers and soldiers of the Division for their resilience and patriotism in the ongoing operation even as he commends members of various vigilante groups and local hunters for their supportive roles to troops.
He appealed to residents of the areas to always provide useful and timely information to the security agencies for prompt action.