Residents of Sabon Birni local government area of Sokoto state have appealed on President Muhammadu Buhari to deploy more security operatives and their hardwares against bandits in their area.
The call came two days after bandits burnt 23 passenges, including an expectant mother, to death.
In a letter issued on Wednesday, residents under the aegis of Gobir Development Association, said they have suffered enough because of constant attacks on their communities by these terrorists.
“We pray Your Excellency to consider the serious implications of these terrorist acts which are already threatening the corporate existence of the country and might spiral out of control if urgent actions against them are not taken,” the letter read.
“We shall be grateful if you could order immediate deployment of security personnel and hardware against these terrorists and end their reign of impunity once and for all so that our markets, schools, hospitals, farms, highways and social life could once back to life and we continue contributing our quota to the socioeconomic development of our areas and country in general.”
The residents said that banditry strives in the area due to some factors which include local informants, who were either forcefully inducted or out of fear or out of dire economic necessity; forceful conscription of people into terrorist activities and large swath of ungoverned space as well as poor accessibility of the areas.
Others they said were wide distance between them, inadequate boots on the ground and poverty among others.
“We felt scandalized, traumatized and demoralized by the constant butchering of our people without any provocation by the terrorist groups operating around the axis of three local government areas in Sokoto Eastern Senatorial Districts and one local Government area in Zamfara State, namely ISA, SABON BIRNI AND GORONYO, as well as SHINKAFI,” the residents said.
“The communities are daily attack by terrorists, the most popular bandit Bello Turji and his boys who operate with brazen impunity, killing, maiming, raping and destroying our people and their means of livelihoods, for no apparent reason.
“Their impunity has become so brazen to the extent of imposing themselves as rulers and expropriating anything they fancy from the people including but not limited to cash taxes, food supply, drugs and sometimes their maidens.
” Your Excellency, we have earlier on written a similar complaint after a gory incident that occurred at Garki village five kilometers away from Sabo Birni, where over eighty (80) people were gruesomely murdered in cold blood in a single night.”
