Unknown gunmen have killed clergyman, Pastor Jeremiah Ibrahim of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) and kidnapped at least 19 people in Ogu and Tegina communities in Rafi Local Government Area (LGA) of Niger State.
The Chief of Staff to Rafi LGA Chairman, Mohammed Mohammed, confirmed the incident to newsmen on Monday.
He, however, had to place telephone calls to some residents of the affected communities for more information.
Efforts to reach the police authorities to confirm the incident proved abortive as the Police Public Relations Officer in Niger, Wasiu Abiodun, did not pick his calls or respond to messages sent to him.
A resident of Ogu, Kamal Wayam, decried that the attackers stormed the community on Sunday morning and started shooting into the air.
“The gunmen in their large number arrived in Ogu on motorcycles and before we knew what was happening, they started shooting into the air.
“They ransacked people’s houses and whatever valuable they could lay their hands on, they carted away,” Wayam said during his conversation with Mohammed.
He added, “They also abducted six persons from Ogu. Four of the persons abducted were members of one family while the other two were visitors to the community.”
Ogu is a settlement close to Wayam, another community about two kilometres from Kagara, the headquarters of Rafi LGA.
Similarly, the attack on Tegina community was said to have happened at about 12:30am on Monday with 16 people abducted.
“The gunmen entered the room of my daughter that night, but she hid herself under the bed, while her husband went up the ceiling,” Sani Gamachindo, a resident of the community, told Mohammed,
He added, “When the gunmen entered their room, they spent like 30 minutes and ate almost all the food in the kitchen. Thank God they were not abducted, but 16 persons were kidnapped.”
The latest attacks in Rafi LGA came barely four days after gunmen abducted a youth leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the District Head of Gunna, and two children of two health workers in Garin Gabbas and Yakila communities in the local government.
Elsewhere, a pastor with the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Jeremiah Ibrahim, was killed by gunmen in Chukuba community in Shiroro LGA.
The clergyman who was serving at the branch of the church in Kuta was murdered on Friday last week.
A senior official of the church in Minna, who pleaded anonymity, said Pastor Ibrahim had gone to check his farm in Chukuba and decided to visit a colleague who was the resident pastor of Chukuba where he was attacked and killed.
“This is coming barely two weeks after six missionaries of ECWA and the wife of one of them were abducted,” he added.
He stated that the clergyman has since been buried.
This is coming barely a few days after armed bandits abducted an unspecified number of students at the Government Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State.
Newsflash247 had earlier reported that Governor Aminu Masari had revealed that 333 students are missing following an attack on Government Science Secondary School, Kankara town in the state on Friday.
He confirmed these figures of students still missing when he received a Federal government delegation led by Babagana Monguno, National Security Adviser to the President on Sunday.
The governor who explained that the school has a population of 839 students said so far, those kidnapped cut across the state with the boarding school housing all children from all parts of the state and outside the state.
“Based on the available record we have, we are still searching for 333 students through either the forest or their parents to ascertain the actual number that has been kidnapped,” Governor Masari said.
“We are still counting because more are coming out from the forest and we are calling through the numbers those parents that have phone numbers to find out whether or not their children have gone back home.
“We as a government we are yet to be contacted by any group or person responsible for the kidnap of the students.”
