Barely a month after gunmen in large numbers raided Galkogo village in Niger state’s Shiroro local government area, killing 11 members of the Joint Security Task Force and an unspecified number of villagers, they have launched another attack and burned down the entire settlement.
According to the reports, the gunmen who stormed the town in the early hours of Monday on roughly 50 motorcycles burned down the three buildings housing the Joint Security TaskForce, which had been under renovation following the previous month’s attack.
According to reports, after burning the Joint Security TaskForce camp, the gunmen moved from house to house, setting fire to all of the community’s structures.
The incident began about 1:00 a.m. on Monday and lasted until 6:00 a.m., when the shooters were observed riding their motorcycles out of the village with sacks full of food and other valuables.
While confirming the current attack in an interview, the Chairman of the Council, Mallam Suleiman Chukuba, stated the gunmen were not Bandits but Boko Haram, based on the sophistication of the weaponry they were said to be carrying, including explosive devices.
One of the explosive devices planted round the community by the gunmen, according to him, went off this morning, destroying a Hilux Van belonging to the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corp (NSCDC) on their way to the community to ascertain the level of destruction by the gunmen.
Only two out of the number of NSCDC in the vehicle survived the explosion and are in critical condition, receiving treatment at a government facility in Minna, the state capital.
“As I speak to you now, no single building is standing in the community, everything was set ablaze and the entire community is deserted. Right now we can not ascertain the total number of people that have being killed, the situation is quite serious.
“These are Boko Haram not Bandits because they were heavily equipped with sophisticated weapons including explosive devices. This morning Civil Defense vehicle ran into one of the explosive devices, their vehicle destroyed and many of them were killed”, he said.
Before the invasion, the gunmen had on Saturday attacked Pelelle, Galape and Gofan Keremi villages in Galkogo district, kidnapping 12 people and injured a number of the villagers.
Galkogo community had remained without security since after the last month attack which left many members of the Joint security TaskForce dead.
Galkogo community serves as a transit root through which the gunmen launch attacks on other communities in the area but the presence of the Joint Security TaskForce had been a stumbling block to them, hence the need to dislodge the security agents through relentless attacks.