Following intelligence report of imminent attacks on some communities in embattled Kajuru local government, the Kaduna state government has imposed a 24-hour curfew on the area.
There is fear of a fresh crisis in Kasuwan Magani community, one of the crisis-prone areas in the council.
The spokesman of the state government, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, quotes the state Deputy Governor Bala Bantex as directing vigorous enforcement of the curfew.
The Deputy governor, he said, has also urged citizens to comply and support peace efforts in the community.
Kajuru local government area has been in the news in the last two years for the wrong reasons, especially due to incessant conflicts that have claimed several lives and property worth millions of Naira.
Two aid workers, including a Briton were killed in Kaduna last week, provoking an outrage.
The Nigerian Government has vowed to ensure that the killers of a Nigerian and a British national during an attack in Kaduna State are brought to justice.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, gave assurance that the security agencies were doing everything possible to ensure that the three persons who were kidnapped in the attack were released unharmed.
“We commiserate with the families and friends of Ms Faye Mooney and Mr Matthew Oguche, and wish to assure that the security agencies will leave no stone unturned in their efforts to apprehend the killers and bring them to justice,” the minister said.
Oguche and Mooney, were killed when some heavily armed men attacked the Kajuru Castle Resort, a popular resort in Kaduna State.
The assailants were said to have invaded the resort, shooting sporadically and kidnapped three other persons in the process.
Earlier, a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom, Harriett Baldwin, condoled with Mooney’s family in a tweet.
Baldwin, who is also the Minister of State at the Foreign Office and Department for International Development, said the UK government was working with the Nigerian authorities.
The Senate has also condemned the killings and observed a minute’s silence in honour of the victims.
Deliberating on the matter, the senators decried the rate of banditry and kidnappings in parts of the country.
They, therefore, resolved to urge the security authorities to intensify the search for the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
The lawmakers urged the Federal Government to set up an inter-agency task force to tackle cases of banditry and kidnapping in Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and Niger States.
(NAN)
