In the Katapka community in Toto Local Government Area, Nasarawa State, there was a clear sense of terror after two members of a vigilante group and three soldiers were allegedly killed by bandits who broke into the Local Government on Tuesday, 6 February 2024.

Three people were killed and millions of naira’s worth of property was destroyed by unidentified gunmen on February 1, 2024, in the Katapka and Okudu settlements. This caused the Nigerian Army to send troops to the area to maintain peace and order.

However, our correspondent learned that while the Military forces were working to get things back to normal in the region, the bandits mounted a new attack on Tuesday, 6 February 2024 afternoon that resulted in the deaths of two members of the vigilante group and three soldiers.

The chairman of the Toto Local Government Area, Abdullahi Aliyu-Tashas, spoke on the phone with our correspondent in Lafia on Wednesday, 7 February 2024 about the tragedy. He called the Security personnel’s premature death “sad.”

“The Military personnel who were on patrol to maintain law and order in the area were ambushed by the suspected bandits, who killed three of them on the spot,” he said.

“The soldiers were called to Katakpa to maintain law and order after the Katakpa community was attacked, but they were tragically killed in an ambush on Tuesday, February 2024 afternoon.”

To prevent a further breakdown of law and order, he said, more Security personnel had been dispatched to the area and the state administration had assumed control of the situation.

Abdullahi Sule, the State Governor, has been urged by the Bassa Cultural Development Union, an ethnic minority in the region, to find the perpetrators of the attacks on the community.

This was stated in a statement that its chairman, Emmanuel Gbaji, signed and provided to reporters in Lafia on Wednesday, 7 February 2024.

The statement said, “We, the Bassa community of Nasarawa State, have barely recovered from the shock of the attack on Okudu village when we received news of the attack on Katapka village,”  three lives were lost in the regrettable incident, and properties were willfully destroyed.

 “We would like to call on His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State, Engineer A. A. Sule, who also serves as the State’s Chief Security Officer, to utilize his good offices to find those responsible for these violent crimes In order to restore peace to Toto Local Government Area.”

“We would like to express our sincere sympathies to the victims’ families and relatives and pray that God would grant them the strength to cope with their loss. We are incredibly saddened by their loss and ask God to give them peace.”

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