There has been a clash between suspected Fulani herdsmen and the people of Ndi Okereke Abam in Ovukwu autonomous community, Arochukwu local government area of Abia State, which has left about five people badly injured and battling for their lives in an undisclosed hospital.
The injuries they sustained was said to have arisen from bullet and machete wounds inflicted on them by the suspected Fulani herdsmen during the clash between them and the indigenes of the Arrochukwu community.
Speaking with newsmen the President General of the town union, Chief Chukwuma Egbuta Okubi, said that the incident happened last Friday when the herdsmen led their cattle into the farms destroying the crops in the farmland of his people.
Okubi said that the matter was made more painful by the fact that the suspected Fulani herdsmen would uproot the cassava and yam for their cows to eat, including trampling on the entire farm land, thereby making it difficult for our people to hravest their farm produce.
He said: “The herdsmen are trying to make our people to go hungry as they have decided to lead their cows to feed on our crops which are our main source of livelihood instead of the grass they normally graze their cows on, this is the height of provocation.”
The President General said that they had asked the herdsmen to leave the community after an altercation on the same matter but after some time they returned with a promise not to destroy the crops and have been living peacefully until last Friday’s incident.
Okubi said, “But on Friday afternoon when one of our men went to his rice farm with his family members to carry home harvested rice, he saw that the herdsmen had led their cattle to the heap of harvested rice where they fed”.
“The plea of the farmer to the herdsmen to take the herd of cattle away from the rice fell on deaf ears as they rather drew their machete and gave several cuts on the man, who only survived because he was able to escape from the rampaging herdsmen”.
He explained that the members of the man’s family escaped and raised the alarm in the community which drew the attention of the youths, who rushed to the scene of the event to ascertain what was going on only for them to be attacked by the herdsmen.
Okubii said, By the time the youths arrived the scene the herdsmen who were already spoiled for war opened fire on them with their AK 47 assault rifles and inflicted machete cuts on them leaving six of them fatally wounded”.
He said that the situation was saved by the timely arrival of the state chairman of the Farmers/Herdsmen conflict resolution committee and state Commissioner of Police Leye Oyebade and a team of police men from the Arochukwu division of the Nigeria Police led by the DPO, and accompanied by the officer in charge of the police station in the area.
The transition committee chairman of Arochukwu council area, Chief Amah Abraham Nnanna and his deputy, Kingsley Ngunu also helped to salvage what would have been a bloody clash between the herdsmen and the community members.
When contacted on phone, the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) Ogbonnaya Nta confirmed the incident, adding that the CP’s arrival and the manner he handled the conflict helped to save the situation.
The military will soon launch an operation to tackle security challenges posed by herdsmen across the country.
Acting Director of Defence Information, Brig.-Gen. Rabe Abubakar, stated this at an interactive session in Kaduna on the roles of the media in national security.
“We are coming out with another operation code named ”Operation Accord” to address the issue of herdsmen clashes,” Abubakar said.
He disclsoed that the military had carried out 13 operations to ensure peace and order across the country.
The defence spokesman assured the military would not allow any individual or group to destabilise Nigeria.
“We will not spare any security threat in any part of the country, we will contain it; national security will not be compromised.
“Today, no Nigeria territory is under the control Boko Haram, no illegal flag foisted on our land.
“We will synergise with other security agencies to secure the remaining Chibok school girls, and everyone who is under Boko Haram custody.”
He urged the media to support the military in the course of its duties in protecting Nigeria’s territorial integrity and its people.
Abubakar stressed that the media remained a veritable tool of mass mobilisation and enlightenment of the populace on what the military was doing to secure the country
“Media is an important organ that we cannot ignore especially during security operations.
“The essence is to collaborate and synergise to make citizens understand what the Armed Forces is doing to keep Nigeria one as a nation.
“National security is not about guns and uniforms; it is beyond that.
“Our concern is the safety of our citizens and their property, so that one can move freely without any security threat.”
Lawmakers in the Green Chamber on Wednesday called on the Federal and the Kaduna State governments to immediately declare a security emergency in Southern Kaduna Senatorial district over the recent massacre of over 44 persons by suspected Fulani Herdsmen.
They also called on the government to set up a military strike force in Southern Kaduna as an interim measure to curtail incessant attacks that have been going on in the area since 2011.
The resolution which was a continuation of a motion brought under Matters of urgent importance by a member Simon Arabo and five other lawmakers also called on the security agencies to intensify efforts to apprehend and bring to justice all persons involved in the series of attacks in the area.
The resolution of the motion titled, “Urgent need for a declaration of emergency over the security situation in the Southern Kaduna Senatorial District of Kaduna State,” also urged the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), to provide relief materials to the internally displaced persons on account of the attacks.
While moving the motion, Arabo alleged that various communities in Southern kaduna had been consistently attacked by Fulani terrorists since 2011 resulting in deaths, injuries, loss of properties and displacements of the communities.
Arabo alleged that the recent attacks were in the presence of some security personnels who did nothing to prevent them.
His words: “On the 15th-16th October 2016, Godo-godo community in Jama’a Local Government Area and other communities in Kaura and Kauru Local Government Areas have been attacked by the Fulani terrorists resulting in deaths of scores of people, injuries, wanton destruction of communities and other acts of mayhem.”
He said that Southern Kaduna is substantially agrarian with arable and fertile lands and good weather and that subsequent to attacks by the Fulani terrorists, Fulani herdsmen had occupied some of the displaced communities.
The House of Rep member further noted that the Federal Government had declared a security emergency in Zamfara State in the wake of similar terrorist attacks and set up a military strike force there.
The attacks on the communities, he said, “indicated a pattern of deliberate desire to annihilate the affected communities, decimate their population, occupy their lands and create an atmosphere of terror.”
In the time past, he said, there was a resolution to set up a military battalion/base in Kafanchan in Southern Kaduna, but the resolution was yet to be implemented, adding that there was a general atmosphere of insecurity in the area.
However, there was a mild drama as a member Abubakar Lawan representing Yola South, Yola North Federal Constituency of Adamawa State raised a point of order, saying that the use of “‘Fulani terrorists” by Arabo was offensive to the Fulanis.
The Deputy Speaker, Yusuf Lasun, who presided however got Arabo to expunge the word from the motion to allow peace return to the plenary.
Unknown gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, Thursday attacked policemen at a checkpoint along the Kagoro-Gidan Waya Road in Kaura local government area of Kaduna state, killing two of them while two others were said to be critically wounded.
The Nation gathered that, two of the six policemen who were manning the checkpoint however escaped unhurt.
The bandits were also said to have made away with two AK47 rifles belonging to the deceased policemen.
The deceased policemen were of the rank of sergeant, deployed to the area to check the activities of bandits who have been raiding communities and killing people.
However, eye witness said the injured policemen were rushed to the General Hospital Kafanchan.
He said the incident occurred at about 9:30am when the gunmen swooped on the policemen and opened fire.
“This morning, around 9:30am, two police men were killed by gun men along Kagoro-Gidan Waya Road, we strongly believe they are fulani herdsmen that have been killing people in our communities.
“There were six policemen at the checkpoint, two of them were killed and their AK47 rifles were taken away by the herdsmen. Two others sustained serious injuries from gun shots while the remaining two managed to escaped unhurt.
We took those that were wounded to the General Hospital Kafanchan “I understand that one of the dead policemen just resumed duty here today, this is very sad and unfortunate! ” Andong said.
However, the spokesman of the Kaduna state police command, DSP Aliyu Usman, confirmed the incident saying, “it true, unknown gunmen attacked our men and killed two of them at checkpoint. Every other detail is skeletal, but will get across to the press at appropriate time,” he said.
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III has urged the Federal Government to prosecute killers Fulani herdsmen, saying such herdsmen are nothing but criminals and must be treated as such.
The Sultan, who is also of the Fulani stuck, said Nigerians must stop mistaking the devilish act of the killers’ herdsmen as acting the script of the Fulani community or Muslim community in Nigeria.
He stated this in Kadunaon Mondayat the opening ceremony of the 2-Day Annual Pan-Northern Groups Summit on Security, Socio-economic and political development.
According to the Sultan, the clashes between farmers and herdsmen are purely economic clashes and not ethno-religious as speculated in some quarters.
“There are very terrible herdsmen who kill. But they are acting on their own, they are criminals and they must be treated as criminals. Therefore the Federal Government should prosecute them.
“It is disheartening to hear when people say Fulani herdsmen want to Islamize Nigeria and that is why they are killing. Any Fulani herdsman who kills is not acting the script of Fulani community in Nigeria, neither is he working for the Muslim community,” he said.
Speaking on the state of Northern Nigeria, the Sultan of Sokoto said, unity of Northern Nigeria is non-negotiable if the region must develop and have a common front.
He lamented that, the North of today was not the North that Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello left behind, adding that, there is ethnic awareness among northerners now, than ever before.
According to him, “There is more ethnic awareness now than ever before. The question is why the sudden consciousness in ethnicity and religion?
“I will not attempt to provide answer to this question, but, we must therefore strive to re-unite the North, only then, we can have a common front and build a united and cohesive North,” he said.
On state of infrastructural decay in the north, Sultan charged Northern Governors to pay attention to infrastructure, especially roads.
He said, Governors should build roads, instead of using N28bn to build airport, adding that, common people will feel their impact more on roads that building airport.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Engineer Babachir David Lawal, on Thursday said that the government was going ahead with decision to establish ranches and grazing reserves across the country as a solution to the incessant clashes between Fulani Cattle Rearers and Local Farmers.
He made the remark while receiving a delegation of Tabital Pulako Njode Jam Foundation, led by its Chairman, Alhaji Abdul Bali, in Abuja.
Lawal, in a statement by the Director (Press) in the office of the SGF, Bolaji Adebiyi, also noted that nomads from outside Nigeria have migrated into the country and have been the ones perpetuating most of the crimes on the farmlands.
He assured that government will do the needful to enlighten Fulani Herdsmen on how to make cattle rearing more profitable by utilizing the ranches and reap other social and political benefits that such settlements will offer.
The Foundation, he said, was set up to look into the problem of clashes between Fulani Cattle Rearers and Farmers.
“The foundation, in its submissions, is also convinced that the nomads from other lands are responsible for the senseless killings on the farms and urged the government to strengthen control at our land borders. The foundation is ready to partner with government to bring the situation under control.” The statement said.
In another development, the SGF assured the people of North-Eastern Nigeria that government agencies, responsible for the rehabilitation of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the region is not discriminating in the provision of relief materials to the various states.
According to him, relief items were distributed with a deep sense of equity and fairness, as he emphasized that the severity of the hardships of the IDPs in the affected communities and states were the major consideration in the distribution exercise.
The SGF made the clarification in his office when he received a delegation from another group, the Lardin Gabas Elders Forum led by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Captain Paul Tahir.
He explained that rehabilitation efforts in the North-East, apart from the provision of foods items, tents and building materials, included the reconstruction of schools, hospitals, police stations and barracks.
To streamline rehabilitation activities in the region, and accelerate the return of normal life to the North-Eastern States, he said that a Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative (PCNI) will soon be inaugurated by Mr. President.
The Lardin Gabas Elders Forum was established as a reaction to the devastation that Boko Haram insurgency visited on the North-East Region.
The Forum, according to the delegation, is ready to work with the federal government to ensure that succour is brought to victims of the insurgency.
The forum also advocated the return of Christian Religious Studies to school curriculum to teach youths about good moral upbringing, early.
Oyo, Ogun farmers lament deadly encounters with herdsmen
Pains of wasted efforts, damp squib of raped women and chilling cries of men cut down in their primes are events that have left farmers in some Ogun and Oyo communities sad and forlorn. HANNAH OJO, who visited some of the affected communities ravaged by herdsmen invasion, reports.
MARIAM POPOOLA, a 65-year-old farmer in Ibeku, one of the villages in Iselu community, Yewa North Local Government Area of Ogun State, wept as she recalled the misery attacks Fulani herdsmen had foisted on inhabitants of the community. Some 500 herdsmen were using the Eggua border in the council area for grazing between December and April each year. Although they had been passing through the area for about two decades, friction between them and farmers in the community has been getting increasingly worse in the last 10 years.
According to her, it has become the habit of the herdsmen to rape women found to be alone on their farms while their cattle foul their sources of drinking water. “The herdsmen open up our barns while their cattle eat up the maize and cassava we keep in the barns. Even the planted ones are uprooted and trampled on in the process of grazing. If we ask questions, they draw their guns and shoot at us,” she said.
65 year old Mariam Popoola and other distressed members of the community
Such has been the plight of settled farmers in some South West communities, with the resultant tensions between them and Fulani pastoralists. The farmers accuse the herdsmen of damaging their crops because they fail to rein in their animals when they invade the farms. In worse case scenarios, they allege, the herdsmen are often involved in violent acts like rape, robbery and murder of residents of the host communities.
The herdsmen on their part say that they have no choice but to find pastures for their animals, arguing that they are the victims of unfounded prejudice. Local farmers say some villages including Asa, Agon-Ojodun, Ayetoro, Ogunpa, Kodera and Igbonla, are virtually deserted by their inhabitants.
Timothy Olasope, another Ibeku farmer, said his crops had been repeatedly destroyed in the last two years. He said the presence of Fulani herdsmen had left many of the remaining villagers so frightened that they keep themselves indoors in the evenings for fear of attack.
One attack too many
Violent acts of the herdsmen against the hapless inhabitants recorded by the various community leaders include the death of Yomi Alade, a teacher in the Area Community High School. He was killed in a fight with herdsmen on December 24, 2011. No arrest was made over the incident, much less a conviction.
Earlier, a female farmer, Ruth Oga, had died in a stand-off with herdsmen on her farmland at Asa village. A fellow villager was raped and killed as she tried to defend her farm from herdsmen. The bereaved father, who spoke with The Nation, expressed disappointment that no culprit had been brought to book since last year when the attack occurred.
A community leader Chief Samuel Edun, the Ashamu Apesin of Iselu, said he no longer believed the herdsmen were interested only in grazing their animals.
He said: “They don’t event eat grass anymore. They are after our farm crops. If they meet a couple in the farm, they will chain the husband and rape the wife in his presence. We tried to contain them but we are at our wits’ end. When God is ready, he will come and help us,” he said.
Oyo: A narrative of devastation and despair
Ayete, a sleepy town in Ibarapa North Local Government Area, Oyo State, bears a resemblance with that of Iselu people in Ogun State. As the generalissimo of Asawo, Ayete town, Chief Raheem Lawal Gbadegesin is, by tradition, the one that leads his town to war. But there appears to be a twist of role. He was caught in a clash with herdsmen on a cassava farm recently.
A prominent farmer in Oyo State said the herdsmen had caused a lot of havocs in the 10 local government areas in Oke-Ogun. Chief Amos Ajibesin, the chairman of All Farmers Associations, Oyo State, recounted a murder incident earlier in the year, which nearly resulted in a riot.
He said: “On February 18, this year, the pastoralists met a woman on the farm and beheaded her. I had to run there with the Commissioner of Police to avert crisis as the villagers were already set for a riot.”
There are about seven million Fulani people in Nigeria. While settled Fulani live permanently in towns and villages, many have kept itinerant lifestyle, moving with their livestocks from one part of the country to another. With the nation’s land resources depleted by development and desertification, there are often conflicts between these sedentary and pastoral communities.
Chief Rafiu Magbeje, a community leader in Afua, a village in Ayete town in Ibarapa North Local Government Area, Oyo State, accused the pastoralists of allowing their herds to invade their farmlands. He said the herdsmen often delegated the task of looking after their cattle to children who are unable to keep the animals on designated grazing paths.
“How can someone just place one man and some little children to look after 60 cows?” he wondered. “We have held meetings with their leaders to no avail. It has now got to the extent that our farmers can no longer get food to eat from their farms while the farmlands in Fulani settlements are booming.
“Our traders now buy cassava from Fulani people, which they usually buy from their farmers in the hamlets.
“Young farmers have been affected, as some of them who took loans from the bank have been sent into debt.”
Two-edged sword
Turaki Shehu Muhammad is the State Secretary of the Association of Fulani Chiefs of Nigeria, Ogun State chapter. He told The Nation that the current situation had made life difficult for farmers and the herdsmen alike.
“The government of the day has formed a committee in which Fulani people and the native farmers are represented. We have written a memorandum to the government of the day, telling them what to do. But knowing our political setting, it is the government that is delaying the implementation of these things. Really, it is both parties that are suffering. The Fulani community is suffering and the native community is suffering,” he said.
Yakubu Bello, the head of the Miyeti Allah association of Fulani herdsmen in Surulere, Oyo State, said that his group had met with farmers and begged them for an end to violence and reprisal attacks.
He added that the nomadic herdsmen were the ones who caused violence, insisting that there had always been a cordial relationship between the settled Fulanis and members of their host communities. He cited numerous intermarriages that have served in many instances to cement relationships.
Fulani leaders have called for grazing reserves to be set aside for their exclusive use, arguing that this would also help reduce friction with settled communities. Although there is such provision, it is far from being adequate for their needs.
All Farmers Association’s Ajibesin said they would not agree to the creation of a grazing reserve in Oyo State for herdsmen. He added that the association had written a proposal to the pastoralists to source readymade feeds for their cattle as is done by poultry farmers.
Some farmers are believed to have resorted to spraying chemicals on their farmlands or poisoning the streams where the herdsmen graze their cattle. Herdsmen have also threatened to sue any farmer on whose farm their cattle die.
Dele Raji is a farmer from Saki, one of the towns in Oke-Ogun area. He doubles as the chairman of the Oyo State chapter of the Maize Association of Nigeria. He said that herdsmen have no right to complain if their livestock fall ill while grazing on other people’s property.
“Is it the farm that went to meet the cow or the cow that went to meet the farm?” he asked. “That is our contention. Even if it is an open space, can an intruder just come into someone’s house without permission?”
Anger against the state
Farmers say that they have been betrayed by a police force incapable of protecting them from killer herdsmen. They complain that even when disputes are taken to the authorities, the compensation offered does not cover the cost of the farmlands destroyed. Raji said that farmers were often locked up unjustly while errant herdsmen, usually Fulani, brag about having the means to ‘take care’ of the police.
But the spokesman of the Oyo State Police Command, Adekunle Ajisebutu, said that any allegation of partiality in the matter was baseless.
He said: “We are a federal security organisation and we work according to the constitution. The constitution guarantees freedom of association and movement, and when there is crisis between one ethnic group and the other, you do not expect us to begin to support one ethnic group against the other.”
He added that the police had been trying to mediate, using alternative conflict resolution methods.
Asked about arrests, Ajisebutu responded: “I can’t give you the number of arrests we have made now. But I can tell you that we have effected some arrests as regard skirmishes and crises emanating from those places, and they have been arraigned in court. Whether they are Fulani or they are farmers, I don’t know.”
In Ogun State, the command’s spokesman, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said that local forces had always taken action and called stakeholders’ meetings involving both groups. The herdsmen say they carry guns to protect their cattle.
But Oyeyemi said that insinuations that the herdsmen are better armed than the police are untrue. He added that herdsmen have been warned not to carry arms. All they need, he said, are the traditional staff used to direct cattle while grazing.
“Once we get any such information, we act swiftly to prevent violence,” he said.
The youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has condemned the attack, on residents of Ndiagu, Attakwu, Akegbe-Ugwu in Nkanu-West Local Government Area of Enugu State by hoodlums suspected to be Fulani herdsmen.
The herdsmen numbering about 50, reportedly killed a Catholic seminarian, Lazarus Nwafor and slit the stomach of a six months pregnant woman, identified as Mrs. Nwarum in the operation that started at about 2.15am on Thursday.
Four other persons were also severely injured during the attack.
In a statement signed by the Chairman of states chairmen, Mazi Alex Okemiri, the group expressed disappointment at the unrestrained activities of the herdsmen and called on President Mohammadu Buhari to rein in herdsmen.
“This is becoming one incident too many and we want President Buhari to rein in his Fulani kinsmen from killing and maiming innocent Nigerians. The Fulani Herdsmen have continued to unleash terror on all parts of the country despite the assurances by Mr President that it would stop.
“We therefore, call on Ndigbo, southerners, Middle beltans and moderate Arewa people to defend themselves in the face of this continuous killings and inability of the Federal Government to protect them. Self -protection and preservation is the first law of nature.
“The Enugu State government should act like the Abia Governor and set up a well-armed vigilante groups in all autonomous communities in Enugu State to engage these blood thirsty Fulani herdsmen.”
The Bwatiye people of Demsa Local government of Adamawa State demanded that the federal government and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) disarm the Fulani herdsmen in their locality, so as to safeguard the lives of the remaining members of their ethnic group.
The people said the appeal has become necessary in view of the incessant attacks on the ethnic group by heavily armed Fulani herdsmen, which has led to the death of about 100 in Demsa local government of Adamawa state within the last seven months.
The Bwatiye people resident in Jos, the Plateau State capital who issued a statement in Jos yesterday, alleged that “armed Fulani herdsmen have attacked more than 10 villages in the locality between January and July this year.”
The statement which was signed by the national president of Pene Da Bwatiye, Prince Hezron Fada reads, “It is with a heavy heart that the Bwatiye Community represented by our umbrella organisation, PENE DA BWATIYE wish to draw the attention of Nigerians to the massive destruction of the rural town of Kodomun in Demsa Local Government of Adamawa State and the brutal cold blooded murder of twenty five (25) persons, comprising our revered elders, young and middle aged men and children.
“The attacks have left a population of about 2,500 inhabitants now homeless and scattered in towns and villages as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
“Please recall that from January to July this year, similar mass killings took place in the Bwatiye villages of Koh, Goron, Ndikajam, Tabongo, No-Ine Fawaire and Jimoh in Girei Local Government Area of Adamawa State, where seventy two (72) deaths were recorded including the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Vunoklang, a suburb of the Jimeta metropolis.
“There is no doubt that the killings by the Fulani herdsmen and their hired mercenaries were perpetrated under a grand design to annihilate the Bwatiye race as a people. Up to this time, no one has been apprehended, questioned or sanctioned by the authorities over the incidences. Is this not a conspiracy of silence?
“As painful as the destruction and looting of property and the brutal killings of our defenceless people and the removal of some vital parts of their bodies for ritual purposes have been, we have managed with difficulty, to implore our communities to refrain from taking laws into their own hands, while we continue to look up to the State Government for justice and protection. (But) unfortunately, government has failed in this regard.
“We find this failure of government unacceptable, as it is equally becoming more challenging to restrain our people from rising up to their own self defence…..
The group said the impunity of the invaders will not stop unless the government ceases to treat them with kid gloves. It however expressed reservation, saying it will ‘wait and see’, citing what it termed the “non-compliance or complicity of security operatives.”
The statement further read: “You will recall that this Commissioner of Police on Tuesday 2nd August, 2016 said no life was lost in the invasion of Kodomun and that he did not allow his men to intervene in the attack because according him, it was a communal clash and to do so, would appear to be taking sides. This man is therefore not fit for a command position. He should be removed immediately by the Inspector General of Police.”
The group therefore demand “the immediate disarming of all Fulani herdsmen” and on the government to come to the aid of the victims of the recent Kodomun massacre through the provision of relief materials and rehabilitation.”
Eight persons died and two others were seriously injured in a clash between some military personnel and villagers in Kpaidna village in the Bosso local government area of Niger state.
The two injured persons were alleged to be army personnel while the identities of the deceased were yet to be known as at the time of filing this report.
The incident which occurred at about 1.30amon Thursday morning began when the villagers mistook a team of soldiers and Nigeria Air force personnel who were in the village on official operation as armed Fulani herdsmen.
Information from the Assistant Director Army Public Relations, Major Njideka Agwu disclosed that the military team was in the village because intelligence reports claimed that some arms and ammunition were hidden in some houses in the community.
As soon as the military team entered the villages, the villagers who have been warned of Fulani herdsmen invasion attacked the team, a situation which led to the death of the five people and injury to the two others.
Four of the vehicles belonging to the army were burnt by the villagers.
The Assistant Director, Army Public Relations in Niger state, Major Njideka Agwu confirmed the story adding that the number of casualty is yet unknown.
“We heard that there were arms and ammunition in that village, so the military team went for cordon and search.
“Unfortunately, the villagers opened fire on the team. The number of casualty is unknown now because the information is still sketchy”.
The Niger State Police Public Relations Officer, Bala Elkana further explained that the incident was a military operation which went awry adding that the Police is not involved in it.
Elkana then disclosed that one of the two soldiers injured have been admitted at the Police clinic while the other was receiving treatment at the Minna General hospital.
Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello have directed a full scale investigation to be done regarding the clash giving the army 24 hours to get back to him with their report.
Bello who was clearly displeased about the high casualty rate condemned the clash adding that both sides should have exercised restraint.
