More revelations have trailed the killing of 20 people in Dogo Dawa,Birnin Gwari LG of Kaduna state. Residents are now pointing accusing fingers at the government and police for failing to nip the attacks in the bud despite security reports about a looming danger.
These remarks came as just as GovernorPatrick Ibrahim Yakowa paid a visit to the area. Alhaji Zubairu Jibril Maigwari ,the Emir of Birnin-Gwari, , received the governor who was accompanied by the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 1Division of the Nigerian Army, Major-Gen. Garba Wahab, the Kaduna state Director of SSS, Yomi Zamba, Commissioner of Police, Olufemi Adenaike, along with some other senior security personnel.
The Emir of Birnin Gwari said while addressing the governor that information available to him pointed to the fact that that the attackers who belong to an armed robbery gang had relocated from Zamfara state.They decided to make Birnin-Gwari their adopted base.
Governor Yakowa said his government would collaborate with the security agencies from Niger, Zamfara, Kebbi and Katsina states with a view to curtailing the activities of the hoodlums.Also,the governor said the Ministry of Health should take charge of those in the hospital just as he directed them to pay all medical bills of the injured.
However, Danlawan Birnin Gwari, Alhaji Abdurauf, a traditional title holder in the area told newsmen that government and the police failed to take action on series of petitions concerning threats of an impending attack.
He said a former governorship aspirant who is from Birnin-Gwari, Alhaji Shuaibu Mikati, had warned government and the police and urged the authorities to take appropriate action on the matter.
Abdulrauf said , “Mikati had written a letter to the IGP on behalf of the community, alerting him of the
threat warnings issued by yet to be identified gunmen who had vowed to unleash terror in the area.
“He appealed to the police to upgrade the police post at Dogon Dawa to the status of a police station but that was not done.
“Rather, they gradually withdrew the six policemen who were stationed at the police post and that led to the closure of the police post.
“The letter was acknowledged by the police authorities but instead of action to be taken, we only saw the six policemen in Dogon Dawa police post leaving. The authorities were duly informed; that was three weeks before this attack.”
Also t contrary to government’s claims that some of those killed were not attacked in the mosque, the Chief Imam of the Dogon Dawa community, Mallam Muhammad said in a separate interview that he had to take cover inside some old tyres which had been abandoned near the mosque and he watched in horror how the gunmen numbering about a hundred, shot and killed the peasants who were coming
out of the mosque at dawn.
The chief Imam said, “the killers were saying that they came to make real their threat, they shot and killed even children, it was sad indeed.”
