President Bola Tinubu has deployed an army battalion to Kwara State following an attack by terrorists, which left scores of people dead and properties destroyed.
Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, said in a statement late Wednesday that the deployment is to “checkmate the barbaric terrorists and protect defenceless communities.”
The new military command will spearhead Operation Savannah Shield, Onanuga said.
While condemning the attack, Tinubu described the gunmen “as heartless for choosing soft targets in their doomed campaign of terror.”
He expressed rage that the attackers killed the community members who rejected their attempt at indoctrination.
“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,” he said while condoling with the families of those who died during the attack.
The president also called for cooperation between federal and state agencies to give succour to members of the community and ensure those who committed the atrocities do not go scot-free.
Gunmen killed over 160 people, burned shops and a traditional ruler’s home, and wounded people fled into the bushes after the late Tuesday attack.
The refusal of the villagers to be indoctrinated by an extremist group, Mahmuda, was said to have led to indiscriminate shooting, as two vehicles belonging to the village head were used by the bandits to transport many villagers who were abducted.
The attack on Woro Village in Kwara State came after the military recently carried out operations in the area against what it called “terrorist elements”.
Last month, the military said it had launched “sustained coordinated offensive operations against terrorist elements” in Kwara State.
“Troops also stormed remote camps hitherto inaccessible to security forces where several abandoned camps and logistics enablers were destroyed, significantly degrading the terrorists,” the military said in a January 30 statement.
In response to the latest security woes, Kwara State imposed curfews in certain areas and closed schools for several weeks before ordering them to reopen on Monday.
Already, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has visited the community. He described the attack as genocide but promised that the assailants and criminals within the Kwara and Niger State borders would be flushed out within a month.
