Terrorists bans political activities in Kaduna [El-Rufai’s memo]

Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai’s memo to President Muhammadu Buhari in July, 2022 has indicated that terrorists operating in Kaduna State audaciously banned political activities in some communities.

The memo said, the Ansaru terrorists who are running a parallel government have promulgated their own law against residents in Madobiya and Kazage communities in the Southern Kaduna Senatorial district from participating in 2023 political activities.

“The insurgents enacted a law in the District, banning all forms of political activity or campaign ahead of the 2023 elections, especially in Madobiya and Kazage villages,” the governor wrote.

The terrorists, the governor said, don’t recognize democracy, while imposing their ideological beliefs on the secular society.

The memo further revealed that the Ansaru terrorists recently conducted a wedding ceremony in full glare of residents.

“According to actionable intelligence, members of the Jama’atu Ansarul Musulmina Fi’biladis Sudan (aka Ansaru) hibernating in Kuyello district of Birnin Gwari LGA recently conducted a nuptial ceremony during which they married two yet-to-be-identified female residents of Kuyello village.”

The wedding ceremony was reportedly attended by various Ansaru terrorist members as well as residents even as they watched terrorists conveying the two brides to the dreaded Kuduru forest, in the same district.”

They were said to be adjudicating cases based on their own laws, which they have penalised one, Alhaji Mu’azu Ibrahim, a resident of Kuyello community, of “the sum of One Million Naira for selling plots of land without the consent of the owners.”

Terrorists are generating revenue from rural areas and removing government structures leaving the people at the rural areas at their mercy.

The memo stated that levies and taxes are being collected from people for protection and for farmers to be allowed access to their farmlands

Meanwhile, in 2021, statistics of deaths revealed that 1,192 people lost their lives in Kaduna State due to banditry, terrorism, communal clashes, violent attacks, and reprisals. In the first six months of 2022, 645 people lost their lives in such circumstances across the state, the government said.

Also, in 2021, the census enumeration exercise could only hold in two of the 11 wards that form Birnin Gwari due to the threat of armed banditry and terrorism.