According to reports, 21 people—including the village chief—have been slain by suspected bandits in Madaka, a village in Niger State’s Rafi Local Government Area, and bandits also abducted a yet unspecified number of people.
The community market was bustling on Thursday at around 3 p.m., according to the locals, when the bandits made their entrance into the village.
The sources claim that during the mayhem, the bandits also set fire to roughly fifty homes, businesses, and numerous vehicles, including motorcycles.
They claimed that the well-armed bandits entered the village and began to shoot occasionally before launching a campaign of murders, kidnappings, and arson.
In a phone interview from the state capital of Minna, Isah Bawale, the district head of the area, confirmed the incident to our correspondent.
It was additionally disclosed that the district head had been killed by bandits during an earlier attack on the same community. A resident said that because there are no security officers in the area, bandits have been attacking the villages at will.
When contacted, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer, Wasiu Abiodun, said he was still looking through the attack reports.
However, the state commissioner for security, Bello Mohammed, a retired army general, confirmed the incident and said the government was working to protect farming communities in the state.
Since the state of Niger shares forests with states in the neighboring Northwest region, where terrorists have been active for almost ten years, the region has suffered from banditry.
The state has documented incidents of widespread kidnappings of students and frequent ambushes of travelers, particularly on the highways that connect the state to other regions of Nigeria.
