At least 12 people have been killed and several others injured or kidnapped in a series of attacks in northeast and central Nigeria, police and officials said Monday (April 3).
In Adamawa state (northeast) unidentified gunmen burst into Dabna village in Hong district and killed three people, according to local police spokesman Suleiman Nguroje, who added that houses were burned.
No group had yet claimed responsibility for the attack as of Monday evening. But Boko Haram jihadists regularly launch attacks in the region from their lair in Sambisa Forest in neighboring Borno state.
Also on Monday, suspects attacked localities in central Kogi State. The governor’s spokesman, Muhammed Onogwu, claimed that a local politician was killed and others were “affected by this awful and unfortunate attack”.
Gunmen entered a church in the village of Akenawe-Tswarev in east-central Benue state on Sunday, killing one worshiper and kidnapping three others, according to local official Salome Tor. Two other people were seriously injured and are hospitalized, according to the same source, which did not give details on those possibly responsible for the attack. Benue State has been the scene of violence between herders and farmers for years.
In central-western Niger state on Saturday, armed men attacked several villages in Mashegu and Munya districts, killing at least seven people and kidnapping 26 others, according to a local official.
Tensions and attacks amid political crisis
President Muhammadu Buhari, who leaves office in May, leaves to his successor Bola Tinubu a country that has to deal with a jihadist insurgency in the northeast, criminal gangs in the northwest and the center and secessionist unrest in the South East.
The most populous country in Africa with more than 210 million inhabitants had elected a few weeks ago more than 900 representatives of the Assemblies of the States, as well as the governors of 28 of the 36 States. Governors are very powerful in Nigeria. Some of them have more extensive budgets for their State than those of several African countries.
This election took place three weeks after the presidential election won by the candidate of the ruling party, Bola Tinubu, and deemed fraudulent by the main opposition parties. The Labor Party (LP) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) claim that technical failures allowed vote manipulation in favor of the APC candidate, the presidential party “The Congress of Progressives”, which the electoral commission denies .
