The residents of Southern Kaduna have protested the government’s incapacity to apprehend and prosecute those responsible for a number of attacks in the region since 2014.
“Let it be put on record that in the hundreds of attacks that have left many areas of Southern Kaduna in ruins and thousands dead since 2014, we have not seen anyone arrested and brought to book over these heinous crimes against humanity,” said Mr. Luka Binniyat, the spokesman for the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU).
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In Malagum 1 and Abun (Broni Prono) villages, Kaura Local Government Area (LGA) in Southern Kaduna, the union deplored “the gruesome mass murder of not less than 38 harmless, armless villagers.”
The statement expressed regret that the long-lasting killings began simultaneously in the two villages on Sunday night at 11 p.m.
The forum stated, “Not only were these poor innocent citizens killed, but not less than 100 houses were destroyed, with some victims being burned alive.”
Volunteers are still scouring the nearby bushes for unaccounted-for people and additional bodies in the wake of the gunmen’s attacks on the two communities, the statement claims.
He revealed that a few days earlier, the villagers had observed a group of strange herdsmen arriving on motorbikes from various directions to set up camp in a nearby bush.
A 45-year-old man named Cletus Dunia was shot dead at close range in Kpak village, a sub-unit of Kagoro, in the Kaura LGA, five days ago, after armed herdsmen forced their cattle into his farm.
They then dismembered his body and fled with the cows. He further expressed regret that the security forces stationed in the area did nothing when the villagers noticed the gathering.
The statement added that on the same day, the same herdsmen killed Ezra Sunday, 16, who was killed about 2 kilometres from where Levi Zakaria was killed, as he was harvesting yams on a farm that was near the killer herdsmen’s running path.
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The report noted that between Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, armed men posing as herdsmen broke into some homes in Kamuru village, Ikulu Ward, Zangon Kataf LGA in Southern Kaduna and killed four (4) people.
It further explained that the same herdsmen were responsible for the death of Gaje Habila, 31, who fell and passed away from exhaustion while fleeing. He left behind a widow and his only child, a six-month-old
According to the statement, 46 people died in attacks in Southern Kaduna over the course of five days.
We think the goal is to further destabilise Southern Kaduna and provide the Federal Government with justification to postpone elections there.
In the statement made available to ejesgist.ng, he continued, “Thousands of people have already been driven from their ancestral homes as a result of similar violence unleashed on them between 2019 and this year as the attacks are getting closer to the 2023 general elections.
Ironically, the union noted that “it is Southern Kaduna traditional leaders, clergy, and human right activists that do get arrested and put in prison over allegations of “incitement,” despite the ongoing killings of their loved ones, destruction of homes, and crops in farmlands.”
It was claimed that Governor Nasir el-newly Rufai’s discovered duty to his constituents is to organise a quarterly press conference to inform the public of the number of his citizens who have been killed and kidnapped each quarter of the year while doing nothing to put an end to the ongoing killings and kidnapping in some areas of the State precisely Southern Kaduna.
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