Magaji Sa’idu, the head of Rakyabu village in the Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State, and Malam Abdullahi, the Chief Imam of the village, have been reportedly abducted by bandits.
A native of the area, identified as Amadu Mohammed, reported that the village head and the Chief Imam were abducted from their houses by bandits on Sunday night. He said that the bandits demanded N5m as ransom, out of which the community had only raised N500,000 through donations by the people of the village.
Mohammed lamented that despite collecting the N500,000, the bandits refused to release the village head and the Imam. According to him, “When the bandits sent a message demanding N5m as ransom, the families of the two abducted people could not get any reasonable amount.
“As such, we decided to launch an appeal fund where we generated the sum of N500,000 and handed the amount to the bandits. They collected the money and told us that we must pay the remaining balance, which is N4.5m.”
Raising N4.5m was an impossible task for the community, Mohammed said, especially as the bandits had rustled and stolen all the animals they could have sold to raise some money.
“We have nothing to sell and get the money needed by the bandits because they have taken everything from us,” he said.
Mohammed called on the state government and security agencies to do something to rescue their village head and the Chief Imam.
ASP Yazid Abubakar, the spokesperson of the state police command, could not be reached for comment at the time of filing this report.
