As bandits intensify attacks on the Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), two police officers have been shot and seven family members have been abducted.
The gunmen shot dead a middle-aged man, only named as Alhaji, who led policemen to stop the kidnapping of the seven family members.
According to our reporter, bandits have been entering communities under the Bwari Area Council in recent days, abducting and killing inhabitants.
According to Isaiah Samuel, a resident of Bwari who spoke to our correspondent on the phone on Friday, the event occurred in the early hours of Wednesday, when bandits raided Zuma 1 in the council’s Bwari central ward.
He stated that the bandits positioned themselves in strategic locations after identifying their victims’ homes, and that the victims, upon hearing an unusual sound, instantly called a relative named as Alhaji (dead).
“It was when the man suspected a strange sound in front of his house that he immediately called his brother, popularly called Alhaji to alert the police,” he said.
Alhaji was said to be leading a team of police to the house when one of the bandits hiding at a corner shot him dead.
Samuel said the police also immediately started exchanging fire with the bandits, which he said led to two of the officers sustaining gunshot wounds.
“The bandits eventually succeeded in whisking away the man and his family members, because the distance from the victims’ house to where the police engaged the bandits is far,” he added.
Samuel also recalled how the bandits in the early hours of Tuesday, invaded Barangoni, still in Bwari central ward and abducted three persons, while injuring a vigilante member.
He called on the authorities of the council to come to the aid of the residents by liaising with security agents to tackle incessant kidnapping in the area.
“The truth is that Bwari area council is under siege, because for the past two weeks now, bandits have been moving from one community to another killing and abducting people,” he said.
When contacted, the spokeswoman of the FCT Police Command, SP Adeh Josephine, in a reply to a text message sent to her phone said, “I will get back to you please”.
(Daily Trust)