No fewer than six people have lost their lives and many others were injured as angry youths attacked Fulani residents in Mera community, Augie Local Government Area, Kebbi State.
According to Sahara Reporters, the youths carried out the attack on Sunday evening in response to accusations that linked some Fulani individuals to recent bandit raids in the area.
The violence was allegedly triggered after a survivor of Friday’s bandit attack informed the community youths that he recognised some Fulani faces among the attackers, known locally as “Lakurawa.”
Enraged by this revelation, the youths retaliated, killing six Fulani individuals and injuring numerous others.
The Kebbi State Police Public Relations Officer, Nafiu Abubakar, confirming the development said that the incident was a “reprisal by the angry youths.”
He further stated that law enforcement agents had been sent to the community to prevent further violence.
“We have deployed personnel to the area to calm the situation,” Abubakar said, assuring residents of ongoing efforts to restore peace in the troubled area.
Meanwhile, the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has urged the Nigerian military to take urgent action against the Lakurawa terror group that is terrorising residents of Sokoto and Kebbi states.
The Forum described the emergence of the new terrorist group as dangerous and alarming, adding that it indicates an escalation in the devastating state of insecurity in the North-West, which has become Nigeria’s epicentre of terrorism.
A statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Professor Tukur Muhammad -Baba, said the emergence of the Lakurawa terror gang in the North-West raises serious concerns.
The Forum warned that the group should not be toyed with in any form or be tolerated or allowed to entrench itself, as was the case with the Boko Haram insurgency.
It called for an immediate, comprehensive and thorough re-appraisal of strategies and tactics, to leave no one in doubt about the national resolve to deal decisively with any threats to the nation’s peace and stability as may be contemplated by terror groups of whatever forms or descriptions.
According to the Forum, the emergence of the Lakurawa terror group brings into sharp focus a need for the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MJTF) arrangement with neighbours to be reinvigorated and reinforced, noting that the Niger Republic must be persuaded to return to participate in the endeavour.
“The visit to the Niger Republic earlier in the year by Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, should be utilised as a fulcrum for renewed cross-border international efforts to deal with terrorists.
“The Federal Government, state and local authorities should also leverage on the close complex historic socio-cultural, economic and political ties with Nigeria’s neighbours with which to confront the mutual existential security threats that terror groups pose to all,” the statement read.
