Agaju Madugba, Katsina
Hours after members of the Boko Haram insurgents beheaded over scores of farmers in Borno State, suspected bandits last weekend reportedly slaughtered seven farmers, including a nursing mother across three communities of Tashar Bama, Dogun Muazu and Unguwar Maigayya villages of Sabuwa Local Government Area of Katsina State.
A member of the House of Assembly representing the area, Hon. Ibrahim Danjuma Machika, confirmed the killing on the floor of the House yesterday, while sponsoring a motion on the need to re-enforce security in some of the villages in his constituency.
Apart from the number killed, he said that the bandits abducted 30 other villagers from the affected communities.
According to him, the hoodlums may have apparently changed from their previous method of launching their offensives on villages at night as they currently attack the people in broad daylight.
He said: “Our people now live in fear as the bandits now carry out attacks in our villages in broad daylight.
“They kill the people, cart away their property and kidnap as many people as they can.
“There is no day, bandits don’t attack one community or another and the people no longer sleep in their houses.”
Machina described the three affected areas as the “gateway” to Faskari and Sabuwa towns, the notorious haven of bandits and kidnappers in Katsina State.
Contributing to the deliberations, a member of the House representing Dutsinma constituency, Mohammed Khamis, and his colleague from Safana constituency, Abduljalal Haruna Runka, said that attacks by bandits across a number of other communities in the state had become worrisome.
At the end of the deliberations, the Speaker, Tasiu Zango, directed the Clerk of the House to forward the position of the members on the need to re-enforce security in parts of the communities to the governor.