Soldiers in northwest Nigeria have killed 80 members of a criminal gang in a gunfight, according to a security report for the United Nations seen by AFP Sunday.
For years, heavily armed cattle-rustling and kidnapping gangs known as “bandits” have been terrorising communities attacks in northwest and central Nigeria, killing thousands and abducting people for ransom.
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In the latest offensive, troops engaged a large group of bandits in gun battle on Friday through Saturday in Kebbi state’s Ngaski district, “resulting in the death of 80 bandits,” the report said.
The soldiers intercepted the militants as they were “attempting to infiltrate” Kebbi state from their base in neighbouring Zamfara state, said the report.
In a statement Sunday the military confirmed troops had subdued bandits “attempting coordinated attacks on five communities” after a three-hour gun battle.
The soldiers seized a cache of weapons, motorcycles and rescued a kidnapped victim, the statement added.
However it did not mention bandit casualties in the fight.
Nigeria’s military has deployed troops on Kebbi’s borders with Sokoto, Zamfara and Niger states — all bandits strongholds, said the report.
This is because Kebbi remains susceptible to attacks by bandits who use it as a corridor for cross-border movement, it added.
The emergence in the northwest of Lakurawa group, with ties to jihadist militants in the wider Sahel has compounded the already worsening security situation in the region.
Nigeria’s banditry crisis has evolved from clashes over resources between Fulani herders and farmers into a broader conflict fuelled by arms trafficking.
Gangs take advantage of security vacuums in rural swaths of Nigeria that have long had little formal state presence.
Authorities and security analysts have expressed concern over the increasing cooperation between the criminal gangs, who are motivated primarily by financial gains in the impoverished country, and jihadists.
The latter have been waging a 16-year-old insurrection in the northeast to establish a Caliphate.
AFP