For half an hour on Wednesday, Governor Dikko Radda‘s convoy of SUVs was stuck on the road to Mantau, the Katsina village where bandits killed 25 worshippers in a mosque on 19 August. And so, what was meant to be a condolence visit produced a metaphor for rural Katsina’s neglect and isolation.
PREMIUM TIMES reviewed video clips and spoke with villagers and government officials to capture a picture of the day’s events.
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As aides, security personnel and local youths strained to rescue his vehicles from the mud, Mr Radda stepped down in his polished shoes and trekked nearly an hour across fields and broken tracks into a village still reeling from one of the deadliest attacks in Katsina’s recent history.
The villagers gaped as their governor appeared in their midst on foot. The symbolism was unmistakable: Mantau is so cut off that even the state’s highest official could not reach it in his powerful SUVs.
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“This is the first time a governor is here,” said an elderly man, shaking his head. “If there is a road, maybe soldiers would have come in time. Maybe our mosque would still be standing.”
“It took us one hour and 30 minutes from the main road to get here,” the governor noted, sweat lining his brow. “This shows how difficult it is for security forces to respond in time.”
A village under siege
The event that triggered the 19 August massacre occurred three days earlier, when Mantau’s men staged a desperate act of self-defence after incessant attacks on their village.
Lying in an ambush, they killed seven bandits on a routine raid and seized their motorcycles. It was a rare moment of triumph in an area where villagers are usually the prey. But the reprisal was swift and brutal.
At dusk, gunmen stormed the village’s mosque, spraying bullets. Some worshippers mistook the first crack of gunfire for a firecracker, but the second and third made it clear: death was in the doorway. 17 worshippers were killed on the spot, another eight outside the mosque. By midday, 20 houses had been burnt, and dozens of children orphaned.
The village’s imam recounted the horror. “We were in the middle of prayer when they entered. People fell beside me. I will never forget their faces.”
Mantau’s narrow paths filled quickly with the living carrying the dead. Women clutched lifeless husbands, children clung to mothers who could not answer their cries.
‘Real men’
Governor Radda, a former SMEDAN boss, tried to balance grief and resolve.
“The people of Mantau are real men,” he said, praising their history of resisting attacks. “But the bandits know these places — the thick forest, the tall crops. They hide in them and vanish. This is the challenge.”
His words carried a note of pride, but also resignation. Rural militancy in Katsina is sustained not only by the bandits’ mobility, but also by the neglect of the state’s rural areas. Villages like Mantau and Burdugau lack basic infrastructure: no school, no hospital, no motorable road.
The councillor for Karfi Ward, Nura Karfi, was blunt: “The governor himself saw it. From Burdugau to Mantau, he had to trek for nearly an hour. These communities have been abandoned for years. Today, there is no single person left in Burdugau — only walls.”
Promises on the ashes
Standing among survivors, Mr Radda offered more than condolences. Each bereaved household would receive ₦500,000 in relief. He promised to build a school and a hospital, to renovate the mosque, to rebuild houses reduced to rubble, and to cut new roads into the forgotten hinterlands.
“We will not abandon Mantau,” he told the grieving families, his sky blue kaftan stained from the trek.
“Whatever you feel, I feel it in my heart. I, too, lost a brother to the insecurity. That is why I assure you this administration will take decisive steps.”
Yet, in the silence that followed, villagers exchanged looks heavy with history. For Mantau’s residents, promises are cheap. They have heard many before.
“We hear promises when the graves are still wet,” one murmured. In Katsina hinterlands, pledges, often made in the aftermath of bloodshed, are rarely fulfilled. They are written in the dust, easily blown away.
Governor Radda also announced plans for a military battalion to be based in Malumfashi Local Government Area. Villagers pleaded for it to be stationed at Burdugau — the community now emptied by fear.
Politics of death
Mr Radda’s visit was also political theatre. In his remarks, he accused opposition leaders of “rejoicing” at the massacre, claiming some had even celebrated the killings as proof that the ruling APC was failing. “Imagine,” he said bitterly, “they were clapping in their homes while our people died.”
It was a startling allegation — one he did not substantiate — but it shows how insecurity in Katsina is weaponised in the power struggle.
“Security is about saving lives, not politics,” the governor warned, before lapsing into the language of electoral contest: “We defeated them before, and if they contest again, we will still defeat them.”
For many in Mantau, the words cut both ways. They long for security, not slogans. They remember the governor’s admission that while Jibia, Batsari and Safana — once the hotbeds of banditry — have seen relative calm, the violence has shifted to remote villages like theirs, where relief takes “one hour thirty minutes” to arrive.
Meanwhile, the villagers themselves pointed fingers not at politicians but at their neighbours. They accused communities, where the government-brokered “peace deals” with bandits, of buying safety at Mantau’s expense.
Adding to the complexity, villagers in Karfi said the armed groups even stopped to refuel in Yargoje on their way to attacking Mantau. Because of the truce, nobody raised an alarm.
“The peace deal is why they no longer attack that area but focus on us,” the councillor, Mr Karfi, explained. “We were betrayed by silence.”
This is a clear illustration of how localised truces, while offering temporary respite, often transfer violence rather than resolve it.
Life Before the massacre
To understand what was lost, you must picture Mantau before the dawn of fire. The village has no tarred road, no hospital, and no secondary school. Yet its people coaxed life from the soil. Millet crop swayed in fields, goats bleated in pens, and children laughed chasing tyres down the paths.
Women carried water in calabashes balanced on their heads, gossiping as they walked. At dusk, the call to prayer rose above the hum of crickets.
That fragile rhythm has now been shattered. Farming is suspended; traders avoid Mantau for fear of ambush. At night, men no longer sleep in houses but hide in bush clearings, while children refuse to walk to distant schools.
The village’s life has collapsed into watchfulness, suspicion, and weary anticipation of another raid.
Since the attack, no NGO has delivered aid. The Christian Association of Nigeria hinted that one relief group might come, but so far the community waits.
Katsina’s Endless War with Bandits
Mantau’s massacre is part of a decade-long inferno consuming Nigeria’s North-west.
In 2011, cattle rustling gangs emerged from Zamfara forests, spreading into Katsina.
By 2015, entire herds were wiped out, leaving farmers impoverished.
In December 2020, bandits kidnapped more than 300 students in Kankara, thrusting Katsina into global headlines.
Military airstrikes and offensives since 2022 pushed fighters out of Jibia and Batsari, but like water pressed in one corner, the violence flowed elsewhere — into villages like Mantau.
This is the grim rhythm: one community breathes a little easier, another gasps.
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Waiting and Watching
Back in Mantau, the orphans of the massacre linger around the ashes of their homes. Women huddle under makeshift shelters, their faces lined with disbelief. Some recite prayers, others watch silently as officials take notes of losses.
Mr Radda said his government was doing “everything possible,” but insisted only God can bring lasting peace.
“As human beings, we are trying our utmost best,” he said. “But peace is in the hands of Allah.”
Until then, Mantau waits.
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