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From Molly Kilete, Abuja
A group of bandits who have been terrorizing people of Dass village in Bauchi State have met their Waterloo.
The bandits were said to have relocated from Kastina State to Dass, after they could no longer withstand the continous bombardment by the military.
Upon arriving at Dass village, they began to rustle cows, kidnap highly placed indigenes, collected huge sums of monies as ransom, threatening to kill anyone who challenged them. They also recruited some of the village young men to join them in their nefarious activities.
Among the villagers recruited by the gang is Hashimu Galadima, 45, who until he joined the gang was a rice farmer. Galadima, who had relocted to Nasarawa State to do his rice farming business, returned to his village and met the three Fulani men who have been terrorizing the village and who approached him to join them after hearing the news of their atrocities from fellow villagers.
Hashimu alongside other young men from the village were recruited to work as informants, who monitor the activites of all the perceived rich men in the village and work out the modalities on how to kidnap them and collect huge sums from their relatives as ransom.
The suspect who said he joined the group one year ago, said that he has made some good amount of money which he invested in his rice farm business and bought some weapons to carry out his criminal activities.
He and some of his gang members met their Waterloo after they killed one Dr Musa Mato, a member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, took N2 million from him and kidnapped his wife and sister who they took into custody.
They also killed a retired Divisional Police Officer(DPO) from the village who was accused of disrupting several criminal acrivites while in service.
The suspect who was arrested by operatives of the IGP Intelligence Response Team, and paraded before journalists spoke to Sunday Sun in this interview. Read on:
My name is Hashimu Galadima. I am 45 years old. I used to be a farmer before i joined a kidnap for ransom group in my village. I actually joined the group last year. I was introduced into the gang by a group of Fulani herders who were terrorizing our village with their deadly activities. They came from Katsina State to our village in Dass, Bauchi State and were forcing people to join their gang or get killed. They are three in number and for fear of not being killed, people were joining them. They used to rustle cows, but I didn’t join them because I used to travel to Nassarawa State to do rice farming. It was when I returned from one of my trips that they approached me to join their gang. I didn’t know what they were into when they asked me to join them so I asked the nature of their job and they told me I will get to know when I resume duty. So, one day they asked me to go out with them and I did.
They took me to the house of one honourable member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, representing Dass Local Government Area. His name is Dr Musa Mante. On getting to his house, that was when I knew the kind of business these Fulani men were into and I tried to challenge them, but they threatened to shoot me so I obeyed their orders. We gained access into the house and searched everywhere until we met the honourable member in his bedroom. We first took the N2 million cash he offered us before we killed him. After killing him, we kidnapped his wife and sister, took them to Maigoshi mountain somewhere in Dass and we kept them there for about three days. But while we were on the mountain, the kidnappers got information that the Bauchi State government had mobilized the security agencies to come and bombard the area and they asked us to run for our lives before they come and kill us. They were getting calls from people while we were there and at a point they said the place was no longer safe that we should escape. We ran away leaving the hostages behind because we could not go with them. All of us went our different ways, some of us moved to Jos, Nassarawa and other states for safety while some of us ran to other villages in Bauchi. But before we went our separate ways, they shared the N2 million we collected from the deceased lawmaker’s house and gave me N150,000, and they told me to give part of the money to one of our gang member, Abdulwahab Alhassan, popularly known as Emeka, because he was the one that actually brought the business of robbing the lawmaker and even took us to the house, but he did not follow us for the operation. With their instruction, I gave Emeka N50,000, and took N100,000. Also the arms that we used for the operation, three AK-47 riffles were hired from somebody and they paid him N400,000, and then they shared the balance amongst themselves.
After we ran away, the victims were able to escape and went to their house and told the security agencies the very location we kept them. With that information, the police went after us. For me, I left Dass, and ran to Toro village and hid inside the bush. Before I left Dass, I had a gun which I sold to one of my friends, Alhaji Ahmadu Sani, for N340,000. I was in the bush when the police came and arrested me.
Apart from the hhonourable member, we also killed a retired former Divisional Police Officer in the village. The bandits said that the man used to disturb them when he was in the police and disrupted their operations on several occasions.
The person who brought the operation to kill the DPO, is one Saleh, who is now at large. He said that they tried to kill the DPO while he was still in the police, but it was not possible so they left him until he retired from service. On the day of the operation, we went to the DPO’s house in the night and when we got there, they asked me to be guard and alert them of intruders. I was holding a cutlass that night while my three Fulani friends had AK 47 rifles. Upon gaining entry into the house, the DPO, heard their footsteps and shouted who is that, but they did not answer. They surrounded his room where he used to sleep and opened fire and killed him. From there, we left the house and went for another operation. I feel sorry for my act and I regret going into robbery, I would have continued with my rice farming business if I had known that I will end up in police custody one day, I wouldn’t have joined them.
