Terrorists Strike in Zaria

By Derrick Bangura – Another forty-eight hours after bombing an Abuja-Kaduna train, killing, maiming and kidnapping passengers onboard, some daredevil terrorists, again, invaded a low cost housing estate in Zaria city, Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State, on Wednesday, inflicting damage on residents and everything on sight, after allegedly kidnapping some people.

This is as the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, seething with anger, frustration and evident helplessness, Wednesday, said with the amount of information and intelligence in the hands of the nation’s security agencies, they had all it would take to prevent attacks by terrorists and other criminal elements in the country.

El-Rufai, who claimed that the Department of Security Services (DSS), had informants everywhere, who were on top of their game, monitoring plans and communications of criminals, said he was angry, frustrated and felt totally helpless with the current turn of events.

But the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who visited some of the victims at the Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, Kaduna, has disclosed that the government might resort to using the Airforce to escort the trains, pending when the approval for the security detection devices pulled through.

Meanwhile an opposition figure, Dr. Bukola Saraki, on Wednesday, offered suggestions to the federal government on how to tame the increasing insecurity in the country, stating that there were five things that must be done urgently if the government intended to stamp out insecurity from the country.

However, although details about last night’s attacks were still scanty when filing this report, a source in the area confirmed there was a strike by terrorists.

Notwithstanding the sketchy details, an unspecified number of people, including a custom officer and his son, were allegedly abducted during the new raid

One of the sources, who confirmed the development, said the terrorists invaded the community at about 10pm Wednesday, even though he could not give details of what happened.

“Yes, there was heavy attack in Low Cost area at about 10pm. I cannot say whether some people were abducted or not because I have no such details now. I will give you the details tomorrow,” he said.

According to ThisDay findings, the criminals, who were in large numbers, stormed the area and started shooting sporadically, before making away with some people, believed to have included the customs officer and his son.

When contacted, Spokesman of the Kaduna State Police Command, Mohammed Jalige, said, he was not aware of the incident as he was yet to receive any report on the development.

“I cannot confirm it because I have not received any report on the incident, but I will contact our men in the area and find out,” he said.

But El-Rufai, who spoke, when Amaechi paid a courtesy visit to his office shortly after visiting victims of the Monday night train attack by terrorists, declared that the state was currently in a war zone and asked the security agencies to take adequate action to mitigate terrorism and banditry ravaging the once peaceful state.

“We have enough intelligence for us to take action. We have enough. The Air force undertakes enough ISR, the SSS has informants all over the place. We know what they are planning, we get the reports; the problem is for the agencies to take action.

“They don’t have to wait until they attack before they respond. The Army should go after their enclave and wipe them off. Let the Air force bomb them,” he said, speaking to the press.

Continuing, the outspoken governor explained that, “Before, they were categorised as bandits if you bombed them, you will have issues with human rights organisations and international criminal courts and so on.

But now that they have been declared terrorists by the court, they can be legally killed without any consequences to international human rights organisations.

“We know where their camps are, we know where they are, the SSS has their phone numbers, they listen to them, and they give me the report.

We know what they are planning. We shouldn’t be waiting for them to attack. Why can’t we go after them?

“We are in a state of war. This place should be declared a war zone. The army, the Airforce, the police should go in there and kill them.

Will there be innocent casualties? Yes! In every war situation, there are casualties.

“We have written to the Nigerian Railways Corporation (NRC) twice to stop the evening service. The last train from Kaduna to Abuja should leave by 4pm, so it will get to Abuja in daylight.

“If anything is to happen, the response time will be quick, maybe in 30 minutes response time. When something happens, the response time will be faster in the day time. We were lucky the military response was just within an hour, because it was dead in the night.

“I’m angry, frustrated and feel totally helpless. Let us establish military basses within Katari and Rijana and there will be response quickly when there is any attack,” El-Rufai said.

Amaechi, while speaking too, said, “I will speak with the president. He has already given directives. I’m sure by the time we finish the repairs of the rail tracks, we would have gotten approval for the security equipment and we would possibly have installed.

“But even if we didn’t install, yet, we have spoken with the management of the Nigerian Airforce to escort the trains. They were previously escorting the trains but recently, the weather has been very bad and visibility dropped to below 500 meters so they couldn’t fly. So, they have not being flying with us and it’s why the latest attack was successful.”

According to the minister, Buhari has approved that, “we should employ people, who will be working on the rail tracks for the next six to seven months until we install the equipment. We intend to employ villagers on the corridor, so that they can report any suspicious movements to us and the security.

“We will commence work immediately and the military has promised us security as we work. It’s less than 2 kilometers of rail tracks. We will complete the work as soon as possible.”

He explained that, “If the ministry of finance releases the funds, then we can know the number of those to employ. But we will involve the DSS in screening the people we will employ.

Amaechi, while at the Nigeria Army Reference Hospital, said, “We are grateful to the Army. The CMD and I have been talking. The Army hasn’t charged a dime on any patient, not one naira and they have given the maximum medical care you can give to any patient.

“They treated the patients with bomb wounds and the lady with gun wounds in her heart, they are bringing in specialist, a cardiologist to attend to her. They have just seven patients left, the rest have been discharged, the federal government is grateful to the military for the assistance.

“We will liaise with the hospital to see how much money we can contribute to the victim’s medical bills. Obviously, the drugs are not manufactured here. The experts they are bringing from the outside don’t work for the Nigerian Army, they will have to pay them

“The hospital management has not made specific requests from us but we wouldn’t wait for them to request. If the ministry can afford to assist, the ministry should assist,” he said, stressing that, “We are still contact-tracking to establish those missing.”

Chief Medical Director (CMD), of the hospital, Col. Stephen Onochukwu, said, “The situation is that the patients we received from the incidents are all stable. We had 25 of them that where admitted. We discharged some of them that are stable, but we are still following them up.

Currently, we have seven of them still left in the hospital.

“We deployed our contingency resources to manage the situation. There are no challenges. There is none of the cases that is beyond us, because we also have collaboration with the teaching hospitals so far. The expertise we do not have, we borrow to manage the patients,” Onochukwu said.