At 2am in Tureta September 9, a call to prayer rose. And villagers obeyed.
Then gunshots rented the air; people were dropping dead.
Before they knew it, dead bodies were piling up.
At six body counts—apart from the many wounded and bleeding—the villagers realized it wasn’t their muezzin that called them to prayer at that ungodly hour.
Tureta LGA in Sokoto borders Zamfara where the Nigerian military is currently pounding bandits that overwhelemed the northwestern state last week.
As telecom services, mobility, livestock and food supplies to the bandits have been stopped, life has become hell for them in the forest. Plus the heat the federal troops is turning on them, the terrorists have to flee.
It was during one of the midnight flights they lighted on Tureta, and drew out the sleepy peasants with a call to prayer.
“They killed six, injured many and abducted several others. The entire area is in shock and some of the residents have started relocating to other places,” a source told the Daily Trusts.
The lucky villagers eventually fled.
Those wounded are now in hospital.
Sokoto Deputy Governor Maniru Dan’iya visited the area later on September 9.
He condoled the villagers, and assured them of the government support in taking care of the survivors, and ending banditry in Sokoto.