From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
83 persons have been reportedly kidnapped in the latest bandits attack at Tantatu ward in Kajuru local government area of Kaduna State.
This is in addition to about 50 persons 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 persons kidnapped in Goni Gora and Kuriga areas of Chikun local council about three weeks ago.
Confirming the development to this correspondent via a telephone call on Monday, Vice Chairman of the Council, Daniel Ayuba, lamented that the local government has been under severe insecurity for a while now.
According to him, “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 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 8 a.m. today, five of them returned home leaving 83 others in kidnappers’s den”, he said.
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 this latest attack, it was the intervention of soldiers that deflated their plan because we don’t know how many people they planned to kidnapped”, he said.
Also confirming the incident, Counselor representing the area, Dantalabawa Maidariya said, the bandits are taking advantage of the uncovered forest that connects the local government with Birni Gwari and 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 Birni Gwari and Kaduna-Abuja highway”, the Counselor added.
As of the time of filing this report, both the Kaduna State Police Command and the Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs have not made any official statement concerning this latest kidnapping episode.