Niger State Governor, Umaru Bago and his entourage narrowly avoided tragedy last Sunday when they allegedly strayed into a terrorists’ enclave in the Igade (Mashegu LGA) and Bangi (Mariga LGA) axis.
The incident occurred during the governor’s ongoing tour of local communities in the Niger North Senatorial District, where he has been inspecting development projects and engaging with residents.
Governor Bago inspected a five-kilometre road in Igade and announced plans to extend the project to Mariga Local Government Area. Addressing locals in Igade, he pledged to rehabilitate health centres in the area to improve access to essential healthcare services.
However, sources close to the governor’s entourage revealed that while returning to Kotangora, the team inadvertently drove into a terrorist-controlled enclave. The group reportedly realized the danger and quickly adjusted their route, narrowly avoiding a confrontation.
“They missed their road and found themselves around the Bangi and Igade axis controlled by bandits,” one of the sources whose identity has been concealed for security reasons, told our reporter.
Another source with a close tie with the government said the security operatives in the convoy “observed that the area was not safe, and they immediately advised the convoy to back off.
“It was when they were trying to turn and take another route that the bandits fired at them,” the source said, adding that security operatives overpowered the terrorists.
The sources who spoke to our reporter also claimed that some of the terrorists were killed as others retreated into the forest.
Bangi and Igade axes have witnessed several terror attacks. In October, terrorists killed three locals on the Bangi-Kontonkkoro road. The victims, according to a Facebook post, were heading to the market.
That same month, a mobile police officer attached to the Police Divisional Headquarters was killed in a gunfight with the terrorists, Abbas Adamu, chairman of Mariga LGA, disclosed in a statement.
He lamented that local terrorists known as bandits had infiltrated some wards — Gulbin Boka, Bangi, Kotonkoro, Igwama, Galma Wamba and Maburya — in the LGA.
In November, terrorists killed seven farmers and burnt 50 bags of maize in Bangi.
Prestige FM first reported the incident in Minna on 3 December. A few hours after Mustapha Bina, a freelance journalist with the radio station, aired the report, operatives of State Security Services (SSS) raided the station’s premises in search of Mr Bina.
But they did not find him. The secret police later invited the journalist for questioning.
“I went to the SSS office around eight in the morning,” Bina told Premium Times by phone, adding the operatives grilled him for several hours until around 2 p.m.
Bani said he might have been detained if not for the intervention of his colleagues at the correspondents chapel and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
The journalist said the security operatives wanted him to disclose his sources, but he declined, describing his experience as demoralising.
However, the Niger State government debunked the news, describing it as fake.
“The convoy of the farmer Governor has been having a smooth tour of ongoing projects across the Niger North Senatorial District since last week,” the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Ibrahim Bologi, said in a statement posted on X.
Mr Bologi said, “The governor’s tour has been peaceful with no incident of any attack or threat to his safety or that of his team…”