Communities In Northwest Nigeria Now Scheme To Repel Terrorist Attacks
With the growing terrorist attacks in Northwest Nigeria, communities in Katsina are now forming vigilante groups against terrorists.
Communities in Katsina State, Northwest Nigeria, have begun devising tricks to repel terrorist attacks, in keeping with recent advice by the Nigerian Government.
The Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi, had advised that communities should complement its war against terrorism by scaling up their vigilance against attacks.
Tumburkai community in the Dandume Local Government Area of Katsina, now mounts an all-night-long patrol to repel attacks by the terrorists.
The terror-troubled community, HumAngle learnt, was, last week, attacked by terrorists, who whisked away seven persons, all members of a family. As of the time of filing this report, the required ransom had not been paid for their release.
“Because of the rising spate of attacks, we now don’t sleep at night,” Abdullahi Usman, a resident of the community, told HumAngle, Wednesday, March 17.
“As soon as it is 7 p.m., all of us, adults and youths, troop out to the streets and nooks and crannies of the town on patrol until 5 am, even everyone would retire home for the morning prayer, and then have some sleep,” Usman explained, stressing, “At Tumburkai, we now sleep only in the day time.”
He said the community began the night patrol last week.
“The tricks we play on the attacking terrorists is, all of us, the patrolling adults and youths, and we are in hundreds, continuously flash our torchlights, and when the advancing terrorists, who are usually not more than a hundred, notice hundreds of flashes, they get scared and, consequently, retreat,” he explained further.
“We only patrol with Dane guns and machetes, but we have now resolved not to fear them (terrorists), even with their AK 47 and other superior arms,” he continued.
“Since the Federal Government has advised us to scale up vigilance and the Defence Minister telling us not to be cowardly, we are even planning to acquire sophisticated arms to defend our community,” Usman disclosed.
“We have resolved that when next they (terrorists) attack our community resulting in 30 deaths, 25 of the deaths should be on their side,” he disclosed.
Terrorists attempted attacking Tumburkai, Tuesday, March 16, storming from the Katsina-Kaduna boundary at the south, shooting sporadically at the outskirts from 10:30 am to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, when they retreated after failing to gain entry into the town.
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