Terrorists, locally dubbed as bandits, whose activities have recently resumed in the North-West, have imposed a total sum of N2million on residents of Yan-buki, Kadamutsa and Dada communities under the Zurmi local government area of Zamfara State, before they can participate in the Saturday’s elections, SaharaReporters has learnt.
Several sources confirmed this on Monday, including a tweet shared by @AM_Saleeem, a northern social media influencer, on Monday afternoon.
He wrote, “Bandits have imposed N2million levy each on Yan-buki, Kadamutsa and Dada communities under zurmi LGA, Zamfara State N200,000 for every PU, before they could conduct the gubernatorial election in the above areas. The residents confirmed.”
https://twitter.com/AM_Saleeem
To verify this claim, SaharaReporters spoke with two other residents from the affected communities on Tuesday morning who confirmed that the situation was true and had generated panic among their people.
“It is true. I was informed during the weekend about this by my relatives in Yan-Buki. But they have started taking a step to inform the appropriate authorities on it,” an indigene of one of the affected communities who resided in Gusau, the state capital told SaharaReporters in a telephone conversation.
Also, a resident who simply identified himself as Aliyu from Gidan Zago, a village near the affected communities, said on Monday that terrorists had communicated with the people of Dada about what they wanted before allowing them to hold elections in the areas on Saturday.
“My people are now afraid that these people (bandits) will come to them today (Tuesday) because that has been the practice. Once they attack or give warning to a village, the nearby villages will always be the next target,” he said.
Zamfara is one of 31 Nigerian states that will elect new governors on March 11—two weeks after the presidential and National Assembly elections.
Zurmi local government area of the state is one of the most attacked areas in the state by terrorists in recent times.
In October, no fewer than ten communities in the Local Government Area were attacked by armed bandits within a week.
The names of the villages affected were given as Yanbuki, Bindin, Kadamutsa, Gidan Zago, Marmaro, Dada, Maduba, Kacha, Huhu, Dangasamu, Hushin Dusti.
This made many villagers to desert their homes due to fear of constant attacks.
