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Bello Turji, the head of a band of bandits in Zurmi Local Government Area (LGA) of Zamfara State, has been persuaded by the residents of Moriki town to lower the ransom he slammed on them from ₦50 million to ₦30 million, with a Wednesday deadline for payment.
According to information obtained by The Eastern Updates, the money is purportedly payment for the new Army base commander recently stationed inside Moriki who had recently gunned down Turji’s cows.
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Families had been mandated to donate ₦10,000 per head of each household, while single persons must pay ₦2,000.
It was also learned that the commander had promised not to hurt Turji’s animals in the future, but the villagers were still going ahead and paying the money.
According to The Eastern Updates, the villagers are afraid that if they don’t comply with Turji’s demands, he will assault them again and leave them defenseless against his cruelty.
The Eastern Updates also gathered that about fifteen local politicians and social activists are still in Turji’s hostage. They were abducted from within Moriki despite the presence of soldiers stationed in the village.
This comes in the wake of popular Kaduna State-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, who noted that the said politicians were not funding the unrest in the northern part of the country rather, they were trying to fight to fight against neglect by the politicians in the region.
He said, “This is an unintelligent allegation. No politician is sponsoring these people. We are all victims. The opposition is not even behind this. This is a natural reaction of people neglected for centuries without education.”
“Now they are exposed to the world and they want education. These people are exposed to the Internet and they see how much they are deprived. They want to fight back. This act is not by anybody.”
He further stated that the people were expressing a strong desire for a better future for their offspring.
“We went to a village between Abuja and Kaduna and we built schools for herdsmen. To our surprise, over 600 of them with their families have started schooling there. They told us that they do not want their children to be like them. Imagine if we did that all around the country.”
Many, including the monarch of Gobir in Sokoto State, have been killed by bandits and other criminals.
