After spending three weeks in captivity, 48 children aged between seven and 12, kidnapped in Niger State, have been released after payment of ransom, according to a traditional ruler, the UN.
The bandits specialized in kidnapping and cattle rustling, targeting rural communities in northwest and central Nigeria, looting homes, and imposing levies on mining sites and farmland.
Abdullahi Sahonrami, the traditional chief in Mashegu district, who confirmed the release of the abducted children, said on August 5, bandits had rounded up 54 children harvesting groundnuts from a farm outside Sabon Rijiya village and held them for three days in their camp in nearby Zugurma game reserve – but had released them without demanding payment.
He, however, said on their way back home, the children were seized by another gang, loyal to Dogo Gide, a notorious bandit kingpin with ties to militants from the Ansaru jihadist group, the chief said.
“Forty children were released last night, and the remaining eight were released today after we paid ransom,” the chief said.
Bandits, although motivated by money rather than ideology, have also at times forged ties with jihadists from the northeast, with whom they collaborate but also clash for territorial control.
A UN source confirmed the release of the 48 children.
“A girl died in the hands of the first gang, and five escaped while being taken by the second gang, leaving 48 in captivity,” the source said.
Activities of banditry have escalated in Niger State as armed groups have set up camps in the Zugurma game reserve in Kainji National Park, using its vast, ungoverned forests to hold ransom victims.
Most of rural areas in Nigeria have little state presence, and security forces are overstretched.
On Sunday, alleged jihadists released a video purporting to show hundreds of abductees seized from a mosque in the village of Dikera and surrounding communities in Niger State’s Borgu district.
The exact number of victims remains unclear.
Veteran journalist and recipient of A.B.C Yola, Reporter of the Year Award (1997), Hassan Umar Shallpella, works with WAP as a Regional Correspondence. He was trained at Institute of Mass Communication and Technology Jos and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Training School Lagos.He was a News desk Editor and a Correspondent at the Punch newspaper and till 2019, was the Deputy Editor ofThe Scope newspaper.
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