Bandits continue to run amok in Nigeria while President Muhammadu Buhari is undecided whether to label them terrorists
Bandits have murdered 17 people yesterday in a mosque in the Maza-Kula village in Mashegu local government area of Niger State.
The bandits also abducted 18 people and injured an unspecified others during the early morning attack on a mosque.
The police claimed that the incident was a reprisal attack resulting from a long-standing communal feud.
According to the Vanguard, the bandits arrived at the village in a long convoy on motorcycles and made straight to the mosque where they shot sporadically at the people.
Those who rushed out of the Mosque were reportedly gunned down while others trapped in the mosque were also shot at close range and left in their pools of blood.
The newspaper said many, who were scampering for safety, sustained various degrees of injuries.
At the end of the raid, no fewer than 17 people were killed, 18 others abducted and their whereabouts unknown.
A resident, who pleaded anonymity, said they were caught unaware when the bandits arrived. “The entire village was calm with people in different mosques performing their morning prayers only to start hearing sporadic shooting and later heard that many people had been killed, others injured and some abducted
“ We are yet to know where they were taken to or those behind it,” he remarked.
The Vanguard said when it contacted, Secretary to the State Government, Ahmed Ibrahim Matane, he confirmed the attack but said that sixteen people were killed in the Mosque while others were killed at Kaboji village by the same armed bandits.
He added that the state Government had already despatched a team of Military personnel to combe the area.
Chairman of the Council, Alhassan Isa Maza_Kuka, who described the attack as devastating, however, said one of the injured people that is in critical condition has been referred to Minna General Hospital for medical attention.
Commissioner of Police, Monday Kuryas, said the bandits killed an unspecified number of people and also abducted seven other worshipers at the mosque.
He said the gunmen later destroyed property worth millions of Naira belonging to one Alhaji Abubakar Maigandus in the village.
He said security personnel, however, shot dead one of the bandits.
The commissioner said that the incident was understood to be a reprisal attack resulting from a long-standing communal feud.
He said that already additional armed security personnel had since been deployed to the area to ensure the arrest of the bandits and all other miscreants undermining the peaceful coexistence among residents.
He urged the residents, especially those in the rural areas of the state, to come forward with reliable information that could aid the personnel deployed across the state to ensure the arrest and prosecution of all those involved in criminal acts.
“ We are battle-ready to confront any form of criminal elements as long as good residents will volunteer credible information on the movement of dubious characters in their midst,” Kuryas said.