Soon after military forces clashed with the “Mahmuda” terrorists on 11 March, the soldiers returned to their bases, leaving local communities surrounding Kainji National Park, straddling Kwara and Niger states, to suffer violent raids by the terror group.
In a joint operation with local vigilantes, the military operatives drawn from Oyo and Kwara states stormed the terrorists’ den inside the Kainji National Park, killing scores of the terrorists, according to Zagazola Makama, a counterinsurgency analyst.
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However, a vigilante commander who took part in the operation told PREMIUM TIMES that the terrorists “outnumbered us.”
“The soldiers said they don’t know that those guys are in large numbers,” the vigilante commander, whose identity has been protected for security reasons, said.
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The vigilante commander said the “soldiers told us they will go and reinforce.”
The operation also led to the arrest of 20 suspected informants of the terrorists, including a park ranger and a local vigilante, who are being held at a military detention facility in Kwara State.
Sending war signal
After the operation, the terrorists sent an audio message to some Kwara and Niger communities, threatening to punish them for “supporting the military operatives.”
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In the 45-minute audio obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, the terrorists specifically threatened Duruma village in Baruten Local Government Area of Kwara State. They also declared war against the vigilante group in Kemanji, Kaiama Local Government Area of the North-central state.
The terrorists said they allowed the locals in Duruma to encroach into the protected area of Kainji National Park to farm and log timber, but that the villagers had called for a jihad [holy war] by aligning forces with the military.
The terrorists also claimed to have curbed kidnapping by bandits in the area.
“But with all these efforts, you people still collaborate with the infidel government to fight,” one of the commanders of the group said in the audio.
“God has decreed to fight those that betray us and the people of Duruma and Kemanji have called for war, and we shall fight them with all our might,” he declared. “Duruma and vigilante groups, and anyone who stays in these villages shall be considered as our enemy. When we come to the villages, we shall kill, slaughter, maim and bomb.”
Paying the price
Following the audio message, the terrorists struck in five villages, killing and razing properties.
On two occasions, they stormed Duruma, burning the operational van and motorcycles of the vigilante in the village. The second invasion was, however, repelled by vigilantes, who killed two of the terrorists, according to a resident who pleaded for anonymity for security reasons.
The Duruma incident displaced some residents. Subsequently, the group made a failed attempt to attack Kemaji village, a resident, Abubakar Isah, told PREMIUM TIMES.
“The vigilantes killed 15 Mahmuda boys, but they lost two members,” he said.
Last Monday, terrorists in military camouflage invaded Ilesha Baruba in Baruten LGA of Kwara State, killing six people, including a vigilante and a 19-year-old hit by a stray bullet.
Three days earlier, PREMIUM TIMES gathered that three people were killed in Lumma, a village near the garrison town of Wawa in Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State. The village had been terrorised by the terrorists who killed and kidnapped residents.
Onyenma Nwachukwu, the spokesperson for the Defence Headquarters, could not be reached by telephone and did not respond to a text message.
READ ALSO: Bandits Attack: Kwara government condoles emir, victims families
Meanwhile, the Chief of Army Staff, Olufemi Oluyede, has given soldiers one month to get rid of the terror group from the area.
“In the next one month, I don’t want to see any footprints of those criminals within that Kainji Dam,” Mr Oluyede, an army lieutenant-general, charged soldiers when he visited Sobi Barracks in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State.
“So, you’re out here and I know you can do it to make sure those people (bandits) leave that place for us,” the army chief said. “If they want to enter another country, that is their business, but you must push them out of those forests so we will not have another set of Boko Haram disturbing us here.”
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