The police have fingered newly formed terror group Lakurawa as the mastermind of an explosion that occurred along the Dansadau-Gusau Road in the Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State on Wednesday.
“This Lakurawa (group) when they were dislodged by the Army in Sokoto and Kebbi, the rest of them that survived the military onslaught were trying to find new enclaves,” the state’s police commissioner Muhammed Dalijan said on Channels TV on Thursday.
“As they were passing that village to Birnin-Gwari forest, they planted a bomb under a bridge. Then a motorist was passing and step on it. It exploded and killed the driver and three other people were seriously injured.”
The police commissioner said members of the dreaded insurgent group were seen around the scene of the incident shortly before the explosion.
Dalijan said planting of explosive devices was a new development in the North-West state. He said though Zamfara has had a long battle with deadly bandits, they don’t have the capacity to plant explosive devices.
“They were seen passing through a village and as we were getting reports, trying to get ourselves prepared to pursue them, this (explosion) happened. So, we are sure that they were the ones that planted the bomb.
“The bandits here (in Zamfara) don’t use bombs because they don’t know how to make it; they don’t know how to improvise explosive devices. So, we are 100% sure that they (Lakurawa) are the ones because planting bombs in Zamfara State is a new development and bandits don’t have that capacity,” he said.
Zamfara, located in North-West Nigeria, has become the “hub of banditry” in Nigeria, as described by Governor Dauda Lawal.
The governor said the marauding bandits whose kidnapping-for-ransom trade is booming in the state can be strangulated in two weeks with the right political will.
Meanwhile, military authorities have vowed to eliminate Lakurawa insurgents and other terror groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
