ARMED bandits killed a mobile police officer attached to the Maru Police Division in a raid on the Ruwandoruwa community in Maru Local Government Area in Zamfara state.
The bandits are also said to have kidnapped 15 people, including the wife of the community’s district chief.
Although the state police have yet to comment on the latest incident, a member of the village, Abdullahi Ruwandoruwa, told newsmen over the phone that the assault occurred at 12:30 a.m. yesterday.
He stated the assailants opened fire indiscriminately after storming the neighborhood killing a mobile police officer who was attempting to defend the district head’s home.
While the criminals had intended to kidnap the district head, they were unable to locate him, he added. As a result, they kidnapped the district head’s wife.
“They found their way to the district head’s house after which they shot a policeman in front of the house,” he said.
“They did not meet the district head at home, but they found his wife and took her away.”
Ruwandoruwa stated that the bandits had yet to contact the community in order to demand a ransom for the abducted victims.
Attempts to contact the state police spokesperson, ASP Yazid Abubakar, were futile because his phone number was unreachable.
Zamfara is one of several states in Nigeria’s northwestern and central regions that have been terrorized by criminal gangs known as bandits, who raid towns, kill and abduct citizens, and burn down homes after plundering them.
The gangs, which have camps in vast forests crossing Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, and Niger states, have also been known in recent years for major kidnappings of students from schools.
The fight between nomadic herders and settled farmers over land and resources is at the basis of the violence in North-West Nigeria, but it has morphed into widespread criminality.
Settlements create vigilante squads to safeguard villages, and gangs carry out tit-for-tat retaliation on rivalry communities, frequently involving mass abductions for ransom or leverage.
