A leader of terrorists ravaging villages and communities in the Zamfara-Katsina axis, Ado Aleru, has said his co-terrorists kidnap residents for ransom but he was only interested in killing people.
Aleru, who was recently turbaned as Sarkin Fulani Yandoton Daji in controversial circumstances that got the Emir suspended, made the confession in a BBC Africa Eye documentary due for broadcasting on July 25.
Aleru masterminded the mass killing of people in Kadisau village, Faskari Local Government Area of Katsina State which prompted police in the state to declare him wanted with a N5m bounty.
In his first and only known interview with the media, Aleru told the BBC that he is angry with Hausas and the Federal Government.
In the documentary titled, ‘The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara’, Aleru said while his men kidnap people, he is only interested in killing.
“My men do that; I just go and kill them (people),” he said.
An ally of Aleru told the BBC journalist that “the Fulani are systematically excluded from government jobs and other economic opportunities, and that the Nigerian air force attacks innocent Fulani herders and kills their cattle.”
He lamented that the grazing routes the Fulani relied on have been closed off while land and water have become very scarce.
Terrorists, who abducted pupils from the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe, Talata Mafara Local Government Area of Zamfara State disclosed that N60m ransom was paid to them before freeing the girls.
READ ALSO: Terrorists kill 13, kidnap scores in Sokoto, Katsina
The state government, however, insisted that no ransom was paid.
When asked what they did with the money, the terrorist said: “We bought more rifles.”
Part of the findings by the documentary team was the growing bitterness against the Fulani community by the Hausa community, which was evident in the encounter between the team and residents of Kurfar Danya.
“If allowed, we will kill every Fulani man, even in the town,” one of the vigilantes said.
“Because they killed our mothers, our fathers, our children, and dumped their bodies here,” a resident declared in protest of the killing of over 200 people by the terrorists.
Residents further took the reporter to sites of mass graves.
The documentary further confirmed that the violence in the region was largely aggravated by vengeance, rather than protection, while the vigilante groups were largely residents of Hausa communities.
“Many Nigerians are, quite rightly, disturbed by the idea that the violence contains elements of an ethnic conflict. But that is the inescapable conclusion from listening to the voices in this film,” the BBC said in a statement announcing the release of the documentary.
A terrorist, who was among the first Fulani men to bring guns into Zamfara and take up arms at the head of a terror gang, Hassan Dantawaye, said: “It’s obvious it is tribal.
“If not, how can someone pass settlements but burn down only the Fulani ones? Why would a Fulani kill an innocent Hausa? Clearly, it’s a tribal conflict.”
The BBC Africa Eye said the documentary seeks to offer its contribution towards the unravelling of the conflict.
“The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara offers no simple explanation for the crisis that is destroying lives across northwestern Nigeria. But it does reveal, with painful clarity, the human cost of violence. There are mothers here who have seen their children slaughtered in front of their eyes, families who have been displaced from their homes, and schoolchildren who are still traumatized by the nightmare of abduction and captivity.
“If Nigeria is ever to solve this crisis, the first step is to understand it. With this film, Yusuf Anka and BBC Africa Eye have made an important contribution towards that understanding,” it stated.
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