Soldiers set to raid Niger villages to recover missing arms

There is palpable fear among the people of Kpaidna and four other villages in Bosso local government area of Niger state as men of the Nigerian military plan to revisit the communities in search of “missing arms.”

ThisDay learnt that the decision to embark on the trip was communicated to government officials last weekend.

The army according to the source told the Chief Security Adviser to Governor Abubakar Sani Bello that two rifles, a video camera and a walkie- talkie belonging to the military were still missing almost one month after the invasion of the villages.

Not less than 24 people including 11 soldiers were killed during the attack with scores wounded while 57 suspects were arrested and charged to court in connection with the incident.

After the crisis, 6 rifles and some other property belonging to army were recovered from the villages.  Two days later the police said they were able to recover two other rifles’ from various locations which we handed over to the army authorities’.

A meeting between government officials and representatives of the army could not resolve if soldiers should be allowed to return to the villages or not because of the possibility of a backlash.

The government officials tried to convince those of the military but the meeting reportedly broke up abruptly a situation that did not go down well with the government team, some of them elected politicians.

‘We tried to make them believe that a return to the villages has the likelihood of causing another clash but the soldiers did not agree with us’.

‘We even suggested that the Emir of Minna will use his village and district heads to comb the forests for the ‘ missing arms but this too did not go down well with the soldier’s’.

This Day gathered that the planned revisit to the villages by the soldiers had leaked to the villagers leading to those that had returned after the clash to start moving out.

The Emir of Minna, Dr Umar Farouq Bahago, in whose domain the incident happened on Monday embarked on a tour of the affected communities to allay their fears.