By Ken Afor
Malam Usman Sarki, head of the Zazzaga village in Niger’s Munya Local Government Area, was killed by suspected bandits.
According to a local official who requested anonymity and spoke to news crews in Munya, the alleged bandits attacked Zazzaga and nearby communities on Tuesday night.
Unspecified numbers of farmers, including women, were also kidnapped, according to the source.
“The attack was launched in the night on Tuesday. They shot the village Head of Zazzaga, Malam Usman Sarki dead and kidnapped many others, the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reported, quoting a source.
“For now, we cannot give the exact number of people they took away. They also rustled many cattle, goats, and sheep belonging to us,” the source said.
When contacted, DSP Wasiu Abiodun, the state’s police public relations officer, confirmed the incident.
Abiodun, however, claimed that he had not yet received all of the information regarding the alleged attack by bandits.
Tuesday’s abduction comes 24 hours after three females and one male – undergraduate students of Nasarawa State University in Keffi Local Government Area – were kidnapped from their lodge at Angwan Kare.
The students were taken in the early hours of Tuesday at 12:55am, according to DSP Ramhan Nansel, the police public relations officer in the state.
DSP Nansel said the security agencies in the state had swung into action in rescuing the students.
There have been multiple abductions in the northwest region of the country in the past weeks.
A major incident was the abduction of 20 students from Federal University, Gusau, Zamfara after an invasion by armed bandits in Sabon-Gida community of the Bungudu Local Government Area in the state.
Authorities say 14 have been rescued so far.
