Air bombardment kills notorious kidnap kingpin

• Insider reveals Abuja kidnap victims rescued by army not police
• Look inward for solution to insecurity, HURIWA tells FG
• Dutse monarch wants NAF base in Jigawa 

Strikes by the air component of Operation Whirl Punch (OPWP) have neutralised a notorious terrorist and kidnap kingpin, popularly known as Janari, and other members of his syndicate.

Janari and his cohorts have been responsible for several attacks and abductions within Kaduna State and along the Abuja-Kaduna highway.

This was as the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has asked President Bola Tinubu and the service chiefs to look inwards for a solution to the resurgence of insurgency.

In another development, the Emir of Dutse in Jigawa State, Hamim Sanusi, has appealed to the Ministry of Defence to establish a Nigeria Air Force (NAF) base in the state capital to help stem insecurity.

The OPWP strikes were authorised when Janari and his gang were sighted at a location near Gadar Katako in Igabi Local Council of Kaduna.

Security checks revealed that they were massing up for attack on vulnerable civilians; hence the need to immediately attack the location.

Intelligence received after the strike revealed that Janari was eliminated alongside other terrorists/kidnappers.

Similar air strikes were also carried out on Saturday on confirmed terrorists’ hideouts near Chukuba in Niger State with various degrees of success.

Meanwhile, following the relentless advancement of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command Anti-Kidnapping squad, in a concerted effort with troops, on the heels of the kidnappers that struck the Zuma 1 area in the Bwari Area Council on January 2, 2024, the FCT Police had reportedly rescued the victims and reunited them with their families.

However, in a detailed fact-checking exercise, Zagazola Makama, a counter-insurgency expert, said that recent reports claiming the involvement of the police in the rescue of kidnapped victims in Bwari were inaccurate. He said the operation, which took place on January 20, was exclusively by the 197 Special Forces Battalion, contradicting the police’s narrative of events.

He said: “Troops involved in the operation have provided a comprehensive account backed with pictorial evidence embedded with coordinate data of the rescue mission near Gurara Dam in Kachia Local Council, which was based on intelligence received at 10pm.”

Zagazola said the troops swiftly responded and located 12 individuals (three adult females, two female children and seven male children), who had been left by their captors.

HURIWA said the Federal Government concealed the identities of key sponsors of terrorists, and the heads of the military institutions collectively accepted to live with the reality that they could not uproot internal moles and saboteurs in these military forces but collaborating, conspiring and working actively with terrorism masterminds.

In a statement by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the rights group reiterated its call for liberalisation of licences to carry military grade weapons by civilians in Nigeria to ward off the resurgence of insurgency and terrorism.

Onwubiko said: “President Bola Tinubu is very comfortable with keeping security officials, who are applying same old worn-out strategies to fight terrorists but are not prepared to adopt technology and innovative strategies towards nipping in the bud the insecurity situation that has escalated.”
THE Emir made the plea for a NAF base while speaking at the groundbreaking and foundation-laying ceremony of the 1,500 housing units embarked upon by the state government, attended by the Minister of Defence, Muhammad Abubakar, in Dutse, at the weekend.

He believed that the proposed NAF base, if approved, could either be located in Dutse, the state capital, or Hadejia, which could complement the success recorded by the troops of the ground army in routing kidnappers and other bandits from the criminal hideouts.

The monarch recalled that the recent establishment of the 26 Armoured Brigade of the Army during the administration of Badaru as governor had gone a long way in bringing the activities of criminal elements to all-time low in the state but appealed to the minister to continue to give the brigade all the necessary support to enable the officers and men of the brigade carry out their duties.