Agaju Madugba, Katsina
A former president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Mamman Nasir, who is also the District Head of Malumfashi, narrowly escaped being abducted by suspected kidnappers on Monday night at Malumfashi, Katsina State.
But the hoodlums succeeded in grabbing his orderly simply identified as Aminu, along with a yet-to-be-identified person.
Reports said that Nasir and the victims were waylaid at about 9.30pm between Gora and Yammawa villages, on their way home.
The incident comes on the trail of a similar development at Jibia where the Katsina State police command has confirmed the abduction by unidentified gunmen of a traditional ruler in the area, along with a business man.
Sources said that the hoodlums kidnapped the village head of Zandam who is also a member of the Katsina Emirate Council, Babangida Lawal, and the business man, identified as Murtala Rabe, from their homes in the early hours of Monday.
According to one of the sources, “the kidnappers stormed the village in the night, broke into the homes of the victims and whisked them away.”
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Reports said that some of the residents who attempted to intervene were severely wounded and had to abandon the rescue effort.
The Magajin-Gari of the village, Nura Suleiman, equally confirmed the incident to reporters while the Police Public Relations Officer, SP Gambo Isa, said that the ”police are making efforts to rescue them.”
A gale of kidnappings has hit Katsina State in recent times even as Governor Aminu Bello Masari sounded an alarm last week that bandits and armed robbers were on the verge of overrunning the state as banditry, armed robbery and kidnapping have become the order of the day.
Jibia is one of the eight frontline local government areas in Katsina State which shares borders with the dreaded Rugu forest, believed to be the operational base of the bandits. The forest stretches from parts of neighbouring Republic of Niger, through Katsina to the Birnin-Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State.