This was revealed in a post on Zagazola Makama’s X handle on Thursday. Makama is a security analyst and counterinsurgency specialist in the Lake Chad region.
It has been reported that Kachalla Duna Tagirke, an infamous bandit boss who terrorized Sokoto, has been captured.
This was revealed in a post on Zagazola Makama’s X handle on Thursday. Makama is a security analyst and counterinsurgency specialist in the Lake Chad region.
Bello Turji Kachalla, a well-known terrorist and bandit chief active in the northern Nigerian states of Zamfara, Sokoto, and Niger, was Kachalla’s boss.
In 2022, Bello Turji Kachalla claimed that the government of then-President Muhammadu Buhari was not motivated to put an end to banditry because certain officials stood to gain from it.
He made the accusation in reaction to military jets bombarding his home from the air.
Additionally, he charged that the government was encouraging the terrorists to violate their peace agreement with the locals.
That year, he had earlier led his group to carry out a massacre in Zamfara that claimed the lives of close to 200 people, many of them women and children.
However, in August 2022, Senator Muhammad Hassan Nasiha, the deputy governor of Zamfara State at the time, declared that Turji had accepted peace.
However, on September 18, 2022, he just missed death when his home in Fakai village, Shinkafi local government area, Zamfara state, was attacked by the Nigerian Air Force, killing 12 of his fighters and family members.
The Defence Headquarters placed a N5 million bounty on the heads of him and eighteen other terrorists and declared them wanted on November 14, 2022.
The leader of the bandits claimed that the government had broken their agreement to put an end to banditry and defend the residents of the Shinkafi axis from any attacks in reaction to the attack on his residence.
Speaking over the phone with an online Hausa television channel, Turji agreed to stop banditry with government officials and local leaders, but he was still upset over the air raid on his house and the deaths of innocent people.
“I wonder if the government really wanted to kill me,” he remarked. I believe their sole intention was to incite me by forcing me to break my vow to never kill anyone. I had just left the house for a few minutes when the bombardment started, so even if they could see my house, why couldn’t they see me and kill me?
“People ought to be aware of their enemy right away. In order to incite us to exact retribution on the impoverished masses, the government is baiting us.
“The government is deceiving the credulous and unsuspecting public into believing that they want to put an end to banditry, when in reality, they are the ones who encourage the bandits’ actions and profit from them.
“Until the government wants me to be a warmonger, I’m willing to be a peace advocate because peace is priceless.” Either peace or conflict, I’m prepared. We can provide the authorities with anything they desire in abundance.
In the meantime, inhabitants of Moriki town in Zamfara State’s Zurmi local government area reportedly paid N10.5 million of the N20 million Turji sought as a “peace deal fee” to protect their town from attacks, according to reports from SaharaReporters.
This happened just a few days after SaharaReporters revealed that citizens of Gidan Goga town in Zamfara State’s Maradun Local Government Area had given Turji the N20 million he was demanding for the same purpose.
