Bandits invade Niger, kill village head; abduct three villagers

Bandits have invaded Mashegu local government area of Niger state, killed the village head of Mulo and abducted three others from the Community.

The Village head, Alhaji Usman Garba was said to be gruesomely murdered by the bandits and his corpse dumped by the road side and fled with the three others abducted.

The state commissioner of Internal Security and Humanitarian Affairs, Emmanuel Umar who made this known while addressing Journalists at Government House, Minna yesterday said the incident happened on Thursday night.

The Commissioner stated that though there had been relative peace recorded in most of the local government areas in terms of terrorism in the past few months but added that some local government areas were however still being threatened by the bandits.

“There had been tremendous improvements in the security situation in Niger state in the past few months but there are still pockets of threats still existing in some communities especially Kontagora, Mashegu and Mariga local government areas.

“The latest one is the invasion of these bandits of some communities in Mashegu on Thursday during which four people including the village head of Mulo, Alhaji Usman Garba and three others were abducted.

“Unfortunately, the traditional ruler was gruesomely murdered by the hoodlums,” the Commissioner revealed.

He said the state Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello while expressing sympathy of the state government over the death of the monarch has also directed the Joint Security Task Force to go after the bandits and rescue the abducted villagers and also flush out the bandits from their various hide out in the state.

Mr. Emmanuel Umar also called on the villagers to cooperate with security agencies in their communities in assisting the Security Agencies with useful informations about the movement of the bandits in order to completely flush them out of the state.