Herdsmen attacks: Niger govt reads the riot act

The Niger State government has warned that it would longer fold its hand watch it people being slaughtered like animals under whatever guise by armed bandits.

The acting governor of the state, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Kesto, gave the warning in Eboji community in Mokwa local government area of the state on Monday evening during on-the-spot assessment of the community after the Sunday night massacre of 21 members of the community by armed bandits suspected to be Fulani Herdsmen.

The acting governor who was sobered after listen to testimonies from members of the community on how the helpless members of the community were gathered together after identifying the “trouble makers”, collected their money and shot by the attackers.
“As a responsible government, we can not fold our hands and watch the people being killed like animal under whatever excuses. This type of senseless act will no long be tolerated by the government.

“We will do everything possible to protect the people because that is our responsibility as a government, what I have seeing here today and the testimony by the people, is a crime against humanity which must not allow to repeat.
“We have witnessed a number of killings here in the state and it is high time we rise up to the occasion,” adding that “nothing is worth the lives of the people.”

Alhaji Kesto who was accompanied to the community by the state Commissioner of Police, Zubairu Mohammed, said the state government will work closely with all the security agents in the state, especially the Nigeria police so as to check the activities of these armed bandits, stressing that “as a government, we will assist them logistic, and we have started discussion with them”.
Also speaking after going round the community and see the extent of destruction by the suspected bandits, the commissioner described the massacre as a “heinous crime”, assuring that the perpetrators will fished out punished accordingly.

“This is not acceptable, it is a heinous crime against innocent citizens if this country and I can assure you that my men are equal to the task, we will fish out the perpetrators of this crime and we will bring them to face the law”.
“This act is condemnable because they have raped, they maimed and they have killed innocent citizens, so what I can assure you is that wherever these people are, we will find them and make they face the crime that they have committed.”

Earlier, the state Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Jonathan Vatsa, in his reaction to the incidence, described as untrue, insinuation that the attack by the suspected Herdsmen was a reprisal one following an earlier attack on them by the community.

“I think that us a pure lie just to give a dog a bad name in other to bang it. We were not told earlier that any Fulani man was killed in the community and if it so, what is the name of the Fulani person that was killed. This is purely an attack on innocent people which should be condemned.”