Following the Nigeria Airforce’s bombing of bandits camp in Zamfara forest where two notorious bandits leaders were killed, the traditional title holder of Dan Iyan Fika, Alhaji Tukur Mamu said, it was women and children who were held captive that died.
Alhaji Mamu condemned the Nigeria Airforce for aerial bombing of bandits camps, saying that bandits ran into hiding in caves while the women and children were left to be killed.
The traditional title holder demanded from the Airforce combatants to produce evidence of bandits killed in the raids.
It is recalled that there was bombardments of bandits camps that killed two notorious bandits leaders with wild jubilations in the North West last week.
But Mamu while granting interview to newsmen in Fika, Yobe State insisted that it was victims that were killed and told the Airforce to produce evidence of bandits killed, adding that idea of bombing bandits was wrong.
He urged Nigeria a to ask for corpses of bandits killed and further evidence of those killed.
“There is a particular forest we visited in Niger State. The whole of the settlement had been bombarded. This settlement has nothing to do with bandits. In fact they showed us two wells full of innocent people, dead, inside, casualties of these bombardments.
“That’s exactly what these bandits were telling us. They said, “Whenever we hear the sound of an aircraft, we run to our caves, and then run. If they will succeed in killing anybody, it is the small children, the wives or the cows.”
The monarch also faulted the activities of security agents in tackling banditry and terrorism, saying they did not have intelligence to carry out their operations.
“That’s their own testimony. So you can imagine a country where, for example, bandits would gather in a forest and be celebrating. You don’t even have intelligence to track them and eliminate them. Then for you to say you will succeed in killing them?
“I hear them yesterday, celebrating the reported death of bandit leader. So, for example if you kill one bandit leader and another one emerges, what benefit did you derive? For example you killed Dogo Gide, a person more dreaded than him emerges. When they killed Buharin Daji, Turji emerged.
He said there was nothing to celebrate since the military cannot defeat bandits.
