Crime

Nine [9] people reportedly shot dead, several others injured as gunmen open fire on residents

No fewer than nine persons were in the late hours of Tuesday night allegedly killed and scores injured by unknown gunmen that attacked Bagana community in Omala local Government Area of kogi State.

A local who survived by whiskers disclosed that the gunmen invaded a provision shop located in the heart of the village and opened fire, killing four persons on the spot.

He added that the attackers then went on shooting spree during which many people who were running to escape were hit by stray bullets.

He disclosed that he counted five dead bodies from his hiding, which included one Alias Barrister, a diesel oil dealer and a dispensary staff of the Local Government Health Center at Ogba, residing in Bagana.

Confirming the incident, the Public Relations Officer of the State Police Command, DSP William Aya, said one Usman Salifu called the DPO on phone around 9.30pm on Tuesday that his shop has been attacked by gunmen leading to the death of his sales boy, Bashir Sule and three other customers, while scores sustained various degrees of injury.


He added that on receipt of the distress call, the DPO mobilised his men to the scene and evacuated some of the injured to the hospital for treatment, adding that the force had commenced manhunt to bring the perpetrators to book.

He said peace had returned to the village and assured the people to return home to continue with their legitimate businesses.

Another villager while recounting his ordeal said they were woken up from their sleep by the gunshots and they scampered into the bush for safety.

He lamented the incessant killings of innocent citizens and wanton burning of their houses by the marauders since 2014 and called on the Federal Government and the Kogi State government and security agencies to come to their aid.

He added that the village had lost over 300 of her citizens and had lost property worth billions of naira to the unending attacks by the militia allegedly invited from Benue and Nasarawa states.

He said the crisis which started between the Agatu militias and Fulani herders from Benue state had turned the town to a ghost, as the efforts by the state government to curtail the carnage proved abortive.

According to him, about five months ago, the same shop which belonged to Musa Salifu one of the sons of an embattled Onu Otutubatu Alhaji Salifu Anyebe was attacked in which he sustained gunshots wounds.

The locals noted that since December 2014 , the village was on two occasions violently attacked resulting to the death of scores and burning down of houses.

They said the incessant killings by the militias forced the people to evacuate their families and property from their ancestral homes to become internally displaced persons, IDPs, in neighbouring villages and to some states, lamenting that no sooner that lives have started returning to the community, than the orgy of killings resumed again.

According to the locals, a prominent Hausa Chief, Alhaji Audi Abdullahi and Chief of Ihankpe were at different times violently abducted and killed by yet to be apprehended bandits.

They explained that some of their children, seven of them, residing outside the state, who innocently came home for sallah celebrations were gruesomely murdered by these vagabonds, even as the video of their torture to death had gone viral.

They alleged that the trouble may not have been unconnected with the supremacy battle of who to control resources of the town by the four major tribes, Igala, Hausa, Otutubatu and Ihankpe.

“Bagana, although, a multi-ethnic group, used to be a haven of peace, until the chiefs of Otutubatu and Ihankpe moved their headquarters from Omagede and Patanyi. These villages are more than ten kilometres from Bagana, the Headquarters of Bagana District of Omala local Government Area.

“The two clans have been on each other’s jugular in an attempt to control economic lives of the village, using mercenaries to unleash terror on the village.

“In attempt to control the carnage, the immediate past governor, Captain Idris Wada had severally summoned the chiefs to Lokoja, and warned them to maintain peace, but the warning fell on deaf ears.

“The Governor had stationed detachment of soldiers and mobile policemen to maintain peace, but they too became the casualty as the soldiers lost two of their men and four policemen to the Ak- 47 wielding militiamen,” the source said.

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