Kwara attack: 162 killed, Tinubu reacts, orders military deployment

Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ordered the deployment of an army battalion to Kaiama Local Government, Kwara State, where terrorists on Tuesday killed hapless villagers in Worro.
 
The President in a statement released by his aide, said the new military command will spearhead Operation Savannah Shield to checkmate the barbaric terrorists and protect defenceless communities.
 
He condemned the cowardly and beastly attack and described the gunmen as heartless for choosing soft targets in their doomed campaign of terror.

 
Tinubu expressed rage that the attackers killed the community members who rejected their obnoxious attempt at indoctrination, choosing instead to practice Islam that is neither extreme nor violent.
 
He said, “It’s commendable that the community members, even though Muslims, refused to be conscripted into a weird belief that promoted violence over peace and dialogue”.
 
The President urged collaboration between federal and state agencies to provide succour to members of the community and ensure those who committed the atrocities do not go scot-free.
Tinubu prayed for the repose of the soul of the deceased and condoled with those who lost family members. He also condoled with the people and the government of Kwara State.

Report has it that gunmen killed at least 162 people in Kwara state, making it one of the deadliest attacks in Nigeria recent months, a Red Cross official said Wednesday.

The attack late Tuesday on a village in the west-central state came after the military recently carried out operations in the area against what it called “terrorist elements”.
Parts of Nigeria are plagued by armed gangs — who loot villages and kidnap for ransom — as well as intercommunal violence in the central states and jihadist groups that are active in the northeast and northwest.

“Reports said that the death toll now stands at 162, as the search for more bodies continues,” Babaomo Ayodeji, Kwara state secretary of the Red Cross, said, updating an earlier toll of 67.

Earlier, a local lawmaker in the Kaiama region, Sa’idu Baba Ahmed, told AFP that between “35 to 40 dead bodies were counted” from the attack on Tuesday evening.
Kwara state governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq condemned the attack as “a cowardly expression of frustration by terrorist cells following the ongoing counterterrorism campaigns in parts of the state”.

The Nigerian military has intensified operations against jihadists and armed bandits. The army regularly claims to have killed huge numbers of fighters.

In response to the myriad security woes, authorities in Kwara state imposed curfews in certain areas and closed schools for several weeks, before ordering them to reopen on Monday.