From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
No fewer than 83 people have been reportedly kidnapped in the latest bandits’ attack at Tantatu ward in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
About 50 people were kidnapped in the same local government barely a week ago. This was coming at a time when the federal and the state governments were making efforts to secure the release of about 300 people kidnapped in Goni Gora and Kuriga areas of Chikun local council about three weeks ago.
Confirming the development to Daily Sun, via a telephone call, yesterday, Vice Chairman of the Council, Daniel Ayuba, lamented that the local government has been under severe insecurity for a while now.
He said: “A lot of security issues are happening across Kajuru local government, not just only my political ward where the latest one happened. Since last week, the kidnapping issue has been on the rise, including the one that was widely reported in the Buba community. They kidnapped people in Maro. This latest incident happened around midnight when people called me that bandits had entered the community and later I got to know that 88 people had been kidnapped. But, around 8am, today, five of them returned home, leaving 83 others in the kidnappers’s den,”.
On what the council is doing on the matter, he said, “the leadership of the local government is trying its best at any given time to support the security personnel in the course of their duty.
“Even in this latest attack, it was the intervention of soldiers that deflated their plan because we don’t know how many people they planned to kidnap”, he said.
Also confirming the incident, Counsellor representing the area, Dantalabawa Maidariya, said the bandits are taking advantage of the uncovered forest that connects the local government with Birni Gwari in Kaduna-Abuja highway.
“Around midnight, today, my constituents called me, telling me that gunmen entered their village and went away with 83 residents. This is not the first time the bandits would be attacking the area. They normally come through the forest between Kajuru and Birnin Gwari and Kaduna-Abuja highway”, the counsellor added.
As of the time of filing this report, both the Kaduna State Police Command and the Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs had not made any official statement concerning the latest kidnapping episode.