Barely 24 hours after 14 people were kidnapped by bandits in Dogo Noma, a community in Kajuru local government area of Kaduna State, 86 others have been abducted at Kajuru Station, in the same council area.
LEADERSHIP reports that this is the fourth mass abduction in Kaduna since the 287 schoolchildren were abducted from their school at Kuriga community in Chikun local government area of the state on March 8.
In fact, Kajuru local government has suffered a series of attacks within the last one week after the kidnap or 61 persons in Buda community was followed by the abduction of another 14 at Dogon Noma- Ungwan Gamo community, before the latest one in which 86 others were led away from their community by their captors.
In another raid on February 28, bandits seized 16 residents from Goni Gora community in Chikun local government area of Kaduna State. Last week they reportedly demanded N40 trillion ransom to release them.
LEADERSHIP learnt that in the latest attack, the bandits stormed the Kajuru Station community in large numbers on Sunday night, March 17, 2024, shooting sporadically before whisking the victims away.
The lawmaker representing Kajuru LGA constituency at the Kaduna State House of Assembly, Hon. Usman Danlami Stingo, confirmed that 86 of his constituents had been kidnapped on Sunday night by bandits.
However, a youth of Kajuru community, Harisu Dari, said 87 persons were kidnapped.
Kaduna State Command’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Mansir Hassan, confirmed knowledge of the attack but could not ascertain the number of the abductees.
Kaduna Governor Assures Of Safe Return Of Abducted Schoolchildren
The Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani has called for a regional approach and state policing to mitigate issues of banditry in the state.
He disclosed that the government has not received the actual figure of victims in the latest Kajuru kidnapping incident.
The governor also assured that the kidnapped children in Kuriga school would return home safely.
”I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that the children who were kidnapped, by the grace of God, will return home safely,” he said.
He made the comments when he appeared on a Channels Television programme ‘Politics Today’ monitored by LEADERSHIP.
He said the military lacked the manpower required to cover the ungoverned spaces while the vigilantes on the other hand are limited by the constitution to low grade weapons not enough to match the bandits who attack with AK-47 and other sophisticated weapons.
“There must be regional efforts to this issue of banditry. We share borders with other states. I don’t think we have enough boots to cover those ungoverned areas where these attacks happen,” he said, adding that in some of the vulnerable areas, “only the military can access some of those areas, especially the forests.”
Speaking on the recent attack on Kajuru, he disclosed that the Directorate of State Services (DSS) has informed the state of the vulnerable nature of Kajuru but there are not enough security personnel to prevent the attacks.”DSS told us these places were vulnerable and we reported to the military but they don’t have enough boots to cover the areas.
“The vigilantes don’t have enough weapons to confront the bandits. Vigilantes cannot hold AK-47; we can only equip them with pump action rifles.
“At this moment vigilantes can only work with military and other security agencies by providing intelligence,” he said.
Sani lamented that despite being the chief security officer of his state, he lacked powers to give orders to the security formations in the state.
“I don’t have powers as governor to give orders to GOC, Police commissioner on how to act. We’ll continue to talk to security agencies and where they need support we’ll give them.
“We rely on vigilantes but our vigilantes can’t carry sophisticated weapons which are carried by bandits,” he said.
