VANGUARD
•Bandits reign at the Birnin-Gwari Triangle of death, resurgence in Benue, mining still issue in Zamfara
There is a resurgence of killings in Kaduna State. But one question that is begging for an answer is why the government is helpless to arrest the situation. Is it possible that the terrorists have adopted a renewed strategy that seems to defy solution? Our correspondent in Kaduna State, Ibrahim Hassan-Wuyo, takes a retrospective look into the carnage, arson and cold-blooded murder of innocent souls in the Birnin-Gwari axis and Southern Kaduna which have left many families in fear and hardship as President Muhammadu Buhari prepares to quit the stage.
From sectarian crisis to guerilla warfare
Kaduna, hitherto known for sectarian crisis allegedly manipulated by aggrieved politicians, especially during the former President Obasanjo era, has gradually turned into an unofficial base for terrorists of the ISWAP extraction and other criminal elements, particularly after the death of Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau and the decimation of terrorists’ enclaves by the military in the infamous Sambisa Forest. With their occupation of vast and ungoverned areas in the forests of Birnin-Gwari in Kaduna State, life was never the same again, especially for the rural people in these areas. There were intermittent clashes between the ISWAP terrorists, local thieves and other criminals over the sphere of influence having formed a parallel government in those occupied areas and even imposed levies on farming communities.
But the most disturbing and daring of their activities were how they engaged the Nigerian troops in fierce combat with casualty figures on both sides, the series of attacks launched along the Birnin-Gwari Kaduna highway and Abuja- Kaduna highway, as well as the killings and kidnap for ransom in the night train, in towns and villages, in schools and higher institutions of learning across the state, leaving tales of woe and lamentations in their wake.
