A day after waylaying terrorists killed a nursing mother along Pandogari-Allawa road in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State, her seven-month-old baby was found sleeping on her back.
The terrorists locally known as bandits, blocked the Pandogari-Allawa road a day before Sallah and killed six passengers, including a form 2 student of Maryam Babangida Girls’ Science College, Minna, Hauwa Aliyu, and the mother of the baby, according to Daily Trust.
“Miraculously, the baby was one of the survivors of the attack in which six people were killed,” Jibril Allawa, President of Lakpma Youth Assembly, said. “Vigilantes who went the following day to evacuate the remains of the victims found the baby sleeping on his dead mother’s back.”
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“The incident happened on June 27, and six people lost their lives. Maryam called and informed us that she was coming home for the Sallah. We told her to stay back in school and celebrate the Sallah there but she insisted that she wanted to come home and celebrate with us.
The baby
“One Abubakar Ismail, a 16-year-old, who sustained gunshot injuries on his chest managed to run some distance before he was rescued and is now receiving treatment in a hospital,” Allawa added.
The Lakpma is one of the banditry-prone axes in Shiroro LGA. For Instance, the ugly state of the Allawa-Pandogari-Bassa road makes it easy for bandits to wreak havoc on the axis unhindered.
Last year, Galadima Kogo, a village along the Lakpma axis, witnessed at least two bomb blasts in the space of three weeks. The terrorists had initially launched an attack on the security base in the village, killing a score of armed security men and setting houses ablaze.
“Terrorists believed to be elements of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) stormed the community in their large numbers on motorcycles in a convoy and went straight to Security Outfit stationed in the town,” Sani Yusuf Kokki stated in a press statement issued on January 30, 2022.
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Barely three weeks after the attack, the terrorists returned to the community and wreaked havoc unchallenged.
“Galadima Kogo since that infamous massacre has been rendered absolutely porous as well as made completely vulnerable due to non-restoration of Special Hunters earlier withdrawn from the town. The said Special Hunters have for a very long been solely responsible for security there. That’s why the terrorists are more daring, currently having a field day operating freely and launching deadly attacks without any resistance, confrontation or reprisals. At the moment, the level of destructions and losses is still unascertainable as arson is still ongoing and the daybreak is yet to set in,” Kokki stated in a subsequent statement.
Earlier this year, WikkiTimes exclusively reported that some bold vigilantes trying to repel bandits attacks in Galadima Kogo were bombed by airstrikes from Nigerian Air Force (NAF) jet. This forced about 8,150 people in the villages and other neighbouring communities to desert their homes.
