Bandits have been making inroad into the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sparking tension among resident.
The attackers, it was gathered, usually sneak into the communities through river or bush paths from neighbouring Niger and Kaduna States, where they have established camps, a situation that often leaves little or no chance for the security operatives manning the checkpoints to notice their arrival.
The attacks became rampant from November last year, according to sources, leading to the killing of many people, either at the point of operation or in their camps, where they executed victims who failed to meet their ransom demands.
Communities located on the outskirts of Bwari town, namely, Tukolo, Baran-Goni, Kuduru and Zuma, as well as other remote communities like Igwu, Shere and Kawu, and Mpape, have been worst affected by the rising attacks.
Daily Trust Saturday reports that residents in other areas around Kubwa, Dutse, Dei-Dei and nearby Zhibi communities are also becoming prey to the marauding elements.
This is coming at a time when many villagers, who either live or own farmlands in neighbouring Niger and Kaduna states, have been ransacked by the bandits, who convert the forest around their villages to their operational bases.
Residents sell property to pay ransom
On many occasions, relatives of kidnapped victims are left with one option – selling off their property at giveaway prices to raise ransom to rescue their loved ones.
In some cases, relatives of abducted people were made to supply provision items like cartons of milk, drinks and bits of hemp, Daily Trust Saturday reports.
An abducted chief who was released by the bandits recently after coughing out N11million as ransom, was ordered to provide mobile phone recharge cards of two different networks, amounting to N500,000, even though his three children were still with the captors at the time of his release.
That was after he supplied engine oil worth N250,000 meant to be used by his kidnappers for servicing their guns and vehicles.
It was also learnt that there were cases where the kidnappers demanded that relatives of abducted victims must provide them with special motorcycles, each being sold at N1.5m.
Key government institutions at risk
Bwari Area Council is home to some strategic government institutions in the FCT, including the Nigerian Law School campus, Federal Government Girls’ College (FGGC), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), which also owns staff quarters around the area, as well as other numerous private and public institutions.
There are concerns that these key institutions are under threat if nothing is done to smoke out these criminal elements.
This newspaper had in July 2022 reported how a captain and two soldiers were killed by bandits in the Bwari area.
The captain and the two soldiers were attached to the 7 Guards Brigade of the Nigerian Army.
The soldiers were reportedly ambushed after they visited the Nigeria Law School in Bwari following a distressed call from the authorities of the school. The school management was said to have alerted that terrorists had dropped a letter indicating an imminent attack on the school.
In the last few months, residents and parents whose children are studying in the aforementioned schools are now living in apprehension over their wards’ safety.
Some of them who spoke to Daily Trust Saturday about the recent incidents, called for a special operation against the kidnappers.
They argued that the deployment of security operatives around some strategic locations alone could hardly deal with the issue, adding that a special joint operation be carried out and sustained around the bandits-infested forests, including ground and aerial onslaught.
A resident of Tokulo community, which is the home town of the present serving chairman of Bwari Area Council, cited a recent incident as a case, where kidnappers rained bullets over a parked security van stationed in the area.
“Luckily for the security men, they were not inside the vehicle at the time, otherwise, the chance of their survival was little,” he said.
The resident, however, added that the security operatives had managed to fire back from their nearby hideout, which eventually made the bandits withdraw.
“But that didn’t stop the gunmen from returning to the area within just a week and abducted three residents, who were still with them,” he disclosed.
Just recently, a gang of kidnappers who raided Zuma community on the outskirts of Bwari town, opened fire against a police van on a rescue mission, injuring two policemen, as well as killing a civilian who led them to the area. They went ahead to their target, a family of seven.
Locals abandon farms
Daily Trust Saturday also reports that the activities of the bandits have forced many farmers to stay away from their farms around the affected communities.
The situation, it was learnt, has also forced some residents to relocate, while business owners, such as property developers, their agents, as well as artisans, are losing their means of livelihood.
Some residents interviewed disclosed that the kidnappers, who were hitherto coming only from far locations, now penetrated the forest around Igwu and Runji communities under the Kawu district that shares a boundary with Kagarko Local Government Area of Kaduna State, as well as Kaima forest, where the Bwari Area Council shares its boundary with Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.
Residents resort to protests
Worried by the surge in bandits’ operations, residents of Gidna, a village under Idah ward in Kagarko Local Government Area, which shares boundary with Tokulo in Bwari, recently staged a protest, blocking a highway, popularly known as SCC Road, which links Bwari town to Jere in Kaduna State.
The protesters were in the process of extending the exercise to the Abuja-Kaduna highway, “for better attention” when they were made to halt it by their traditional leader.
Speaking on the incident, a community leader, John Alpha Dogo, said the development was coming after seven villagers were abducted from Jidna community in the axis during the early hours of the day.
He said the incident proceeded with a similar one at Godna, a village also around the axis, where kidnappers killed one man and abducted four other residents on December 27, 2023.
“Before that, they raided Poyisma village and chased residents away, demanding that they provide them with N10million as a condition to be allowed back.”
Dogo added that Garam, a village located in Tafa Local Government Area of Niger State around the axis, had also come under a series of kidnapping incidents that led to the killing of a pastor and other residents recently.
He said the bandits equally dislodged the residents of Gadunda around the area in December and converted the community as their base.
He said the bandits first arrived in the area in May 2022 when they abducted 72 people in a single swoop after raiding their church, where they were observing a night vigil.
“They took them to their main base in Kajura Local Government Area in Kaduna State.
“It took a long time to return to the community last August. They told the residents that they were back.
“People had managed to stay with them, working in their farms out of fear until early December when the bandits asked members of the community to leave the area for them as the farmers set to start harvesting. That was how the farmers left their farm un-harvested, up till now. The bandits took over the area, operating from several nearby camps,” he lamented.
Bandits have taken over communities under my domain – Dnata chief
Chief Bitrus James is the pioneer ruler of Dnata chiefdom carved out of Kagarko by the immediate past Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai in 2022.
Responding to inquiries by Daily Trust Saturday during a visit to his palace located in Tafa town along the Abuja-Kaduna highway, the chief lamented that farming, the only profession known by his subjects, was under threat due to the activities of bandits.
He listed six communities currently under the siege of the bandits, with the Gadunda community on the top.
He said bandits had gone there on December 2, 2023 and ordered villagers to leave and only to return if they paid N10m.
He added that some Fulani herders at the nearby hamlet who had initially tried to ignore the order had to flee the community too as the bandits started slaughtering their chickens and other animals for consumption, while forcing their female members to cook food for them, as well as raping them.
Other villages under the siege of the bandits whose inhabitants have been forced to vacate as listed by the traditional ruler include Kwakulu, Jida, Isa, Kuyeri and Mpape.
He said between 300 and 500 kidnappers were running various camps in the area.
The chief said that between December 24 and now, bandits had carried out several operations, moving from one community to another and abducting their victims at will.
“They first went to Gami village and abducted some residents, then Tafa-Pai, Tafa-Gari, as well as Pariga, where they killed three people and abducted 10 others. They also killed three people in Mpape, a village under Kagarko Local Government Area, not that of the FCT.
He said N10m ransom was paid in the case of one of the villages named Parigy, only for the kidnappers to kill one of the victims and placed another N10m demand as a new condition to release the remaining 10 victims.
He said that in the case of Mpape, ransom was paid but the bandits still demanded six special motorcycles, each costing N1.5m.
He said the latest incident took place in Jidna in the early hours of Friday, where seven residents were abducted.
He said the bandits seemed to operate in synergy with their counterparts around forests in the FCT, Niger, Kaduna and Nasarawa states, swapping their victims in different directions to make them feel that they had been taken away to far destinations.
“We need a similar synergy among our neighbouring states to achieve a desired goal. I have earmarked 100 hectares of land within my domain and urged the Chief of Defence Staff to use it for military barracks.
“This is a very strategic location next to Abuja. We hope that our governor, Senator Uba Sani, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Chief of Defence Staff would come together to achieve this.
“My people don’t know any profession apart from farming, yet their means of livelihood is being threatened by these bandits who demand up toN10m from a farmer who has never seen such amount of money in his lifetime.
For the sake of our proximity to Abuja, this issue shouldn’t be taken lightly,” the chief added.
Security expert blames informants
A retired military captain who recently escaped from the bandits’ den following his abduction from one of the FCT communities has said that informants living around the people were the major challenge in dealing with kidnapping.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, he said their kidnappers had mentioned their targets, giving their names and professions in detail.
“But I believe they were getting the wrong information about me as there is no way I could have owned the money they mentioned to me as a retired military captain,” he said.
He said the camp where he was taken to, along with other victims, took them about six hours of trekking in the bush without a single community along the way, except one he learnt had been taken over by the bandits recently.
“Although the location is within Kaduna State, from the look of things, it is not far from Abuja due to traffic movement of flights, which you can only have in the Abuja airport,” he said.
He put the number of kidnappers’ camps scattered across the bush at 20, each one under the control of a gang leader. He said his kidnappers had knowledge of his past profession from day one but claimed to set him free if he cooperated.
“They told me that there was a business I was pursuing and that if I had succeeded I would make their ransom demand available,” he said.
He said he spent three weeks in the bandits’ den, during which he saw other victims set free after their family members had paid their ransoms.
He further said that on the night of December 26, a day before he escaped, his kidnappers smoked hemp and drank heavily while making him remain standing as punishment and to get him tired and easily get him to sleep.
“But you know, human beings cannot cheat nature, as such, they eventually slept off. The remaining one among them who remained on guard had to also ask me to lie down and sleep.
“I would hardly get any sleep, and as such, I woke up 30 minutes later, around 12:30 am. I discovered that all of them were sleeping and even snoring. So I got up and decided to march toward the site where they were lying down while avoiding the other sites which had no one around. I kept moving until about two hours later when I noticed a gunshot that I could not understand where it came from.
“But that did not make me change my mission as I kept moving until I arrived at a location where I met some woodcutters around 6am.
“Ahead of that, I climbed about two different mountains and descended. I proceeded with my journey to arrive at a community around the Kaduna-FCT boundary, where I met some villagers who initially made me scared about them as they were bearing the same types of big mobile phones similar to those of the kidnappers I fled from.
“Thereafter, my legs could no longer carry me, but suddenly, I saw a motorcyclist whom I boarded to Bwari town from the community. He was suggesting taking me to Sarki’s palace but I told him that he should rather take me to the military checkpoint.
“There, I introduced myself to the officer in charge, and after a kind of explanation, he presented me with breakfast, accommodated me with some cloths and I said my morning prayers before I was taken to the hospital for check-up,” he said.
No response from FCT police command
Efforts to get the reaction of the FCT police command on the development were not successful as the spokesperson, S.P Josephine Adeh was yet to respond to calls and text messages sent to her.
We have launched offensives
On Thursday, the military high command said they had launched offensive operations against terrorists and kidnappers carrying out abductions in different communities in the satellite areas of the FCT.
In the ongoing operations across different hotspots, according to the authority, no fewer than 10 suspects, including one violent informant cum collaborator, as well as two kidnappers, have been taken into custody for interrogation.
Fielding questions from journalists at Defence Headquarters, Abuja on Thursday shortly after a media briefing, the Director of Defence Media Operations, Major-General Edward Buba, asked the residents of the communities and the FCT in general not to panic.
Buba said the military and other security operatives, particularly the police, were working closely to ensure that the current situation in the country’s capital became a thing of the past.
“The aim of our ongoing operations remains unchanged and clear, even in the new year, 2024. We aim to find and destroy the terrorists wherever they may be hiding. We will ensure their defeat. We will not give them the ability to terrorise or hurt citizens across the country.
“On January 5, 2024, troops with hybrid forces, in separate operations, conducted fighting patrols in the Bwari Area Council of the FCT and Kagarko Local Government Area of Kaduna State respectively. During the operations, troops arrested two suspected informants and recovered one mobile phone.
“On January 6, 2024, troops, in conjunction with hybrid forces, conducted fighting patrols to Bwari Area Council of the FCT and Rijau Local Government Area of Niger State respectively. During the operations, troops arrested three suspected violent sympathizers and rescued kidnapped victims.
“On December 30, 2023, troops, in conjunction with hybrid forces, responded to a kidnap incident in Ajaokuta Local Government Area of Kogi State. Troops rescued 21 kidnapped hostages in the course of the operation.
“On January 1, 2024, following reports, troops, in separate operations, raided suspected violent extremists’ hideouts in Bwari Area Council of the FCT and Tafa Local Government Area of Niger State respectively.
“During the operations, troops arrested 10 suspects, including one violent extremist informant cum collaborator and two suspected kidnappers. The suspects are providing valuable intelligence, which is supporting ongoing operations to make the FCT safer,” Buba said.
@Daily Trust