Leggi Jibrin, a notorious kingpin of a bandit group that has been terrorising Nasarawa State and its environs has been arrested by Troops of Operation Whirl Stroke (OPWS), Newsbreak reports.
OPWS is the military spike operation in Benue, Nasarawa, and Taraba states.
Jibrin was arrested by OPWS forces at Agam/Gidan Bawa village in Nasarawa Local Government Area (LGA) of Nasarawa state.
A statement from the forces’ command this weekend, obtained by this online news medium, stated that troops dispatched to Ugya in the state’s Toto LGA also rescued five kidnap victims last Thursday.
The security agents also recovered one AK-47 gun, one AK-49 rifle, 106 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, and a mobile phone from the bandits.
Since 2010, gangs of bandits have run riot in vast swaths of northern Nigeria but only in the last few years has the crisis ballooned into national prominence in Africa’s most populous country.
Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) shows that bandits were responsible for more than 2,600 civilian deaths in 2021 – a lot more than those attributed to Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the same year – and almost three times the number in 2020.
In January 2022, the government proscribed them as “terrorists”.
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