A devastating incident occurred along the Kaura-Namoda-Shinkafi Road in Zamfara state, where bandits suspected to be foot soldiers of notorious bandit leader Bello Turji abducted 10 passengers and set their vehicle ablaze. This attack comes a day after the Defence Headquarters declared Turji “a dead man walking,” vowing that he and other terror masterminds would not live beyond 2025.
The incident unfolded when bandits ambushed a passenger vehicle around 8 am, conveying 10 passengers from Gusau, the Zamfara State capital, to Shinkafi town. The attack occurred at Kwanar Jalab village in Zungeru Ward, Shinkafi LGA. An indigene of the area, Garba Sani, revealed that the bandits abducted all the passengers in the vehicle and set it on fire.
Sani stated, “This is the first time we are witnessing this sad event for bandits to burn a vehicle after they abducted the passengers. They used to kidnap people along the road, but they have never burnt vehicles after an operation.” He linked the incident to Turji’s threat over the detention of his brother, Baka Wurgi, saying, “You are aware that Bello Turji had threatened to launch attacks in response to the arrest of his relative Wurgi. What happened on this road could be as a result of the threat by Turji to force the government to release his brother Baka Wurgi.”
Turji had warned that he would resume the abduction and killing of innocent people in Zamfara and Sokoto states if his brother, Baka Wurgi, who is currently in military custody, was not released on or before the end of December 2024. Wurgi was admitted to the Shinkafi General Hospital, where military personnel whisked him away from his hospital bed. Turji threatened to launch attacks on the people of the area if Wurgi continued to be in military custody.
A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Dr. Sani Shinkafi, has repeatedly urged security personnel to address Turji’s threats before the situation escalates. He said, “I am calling on the security agents to do something immediately to deal with the bandit leader Bello Turji before he wreaks havoc on innocent people. This is a slap in the face of the military personnel to continue folding their arms, while a dreaded bandit leader, Bello Turji, continues sending videos of threats to innocent people and he is still not arrested.”
During an end-of-the-year briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, addressed Turji’s threat, saying, “Indeed, Bello Turji is merely a dead man walking. It will be insulting to try to take issues or join words with a terrorist. Before him, there were other terrorists who boasted that they would deal with security forces. Today they have all been taken out. We will do the same with other terrorist leaders like him. All these terrorist leaders that we are seeing today, before them, there were some that thought that they were champion upon champion. Where are they? They are buried. They are dead. And I assure you that those of them that are leaders today, commanders or whatever they call themselves, just watch out. I will from this platform tell you we have buried them (terrorist leaders) on the battlefield, because that is their fate in 2025. They are dead men walking. C’est fini.”
