From Mathew Jwantu
Minna
Members of Vigilante Group in Mariga Local Government Area of Niger state have vow not to tolerate the rate in which they continually lost their members due to nonchalant attitude of government towards them
This decision arises from protest by Vigilante members over the killing of six of their members including the grand Commander Dan asabe Mariga and several others by bandits in an exchange of cross fire at Rafi Local Government Area some few days ago.
Vice Chairman of the group Tanko Maiyaki announced this while addressing Newsmen while paying last respect to the Commander at his residence in Mariga where sympathisers in thousands troop to the house to condole them over such a great loss of gallant fighter.
Malam Tanko Maiyaki lamented that his members were using local weapons and dane guns which most a times he said got hooked during battle with bandits thereby exposing to fall prey to the bandits.
According to him unless and until government rise to the challenge of providing them with modern and sophisticated weapons which would match that of bandits they will no longer expose themselves to danger such as the one that led to loss of their members.
Earlier one of the son of the deceased who was also part of the dual battle, Sunusi Aliyu who was dumfounded over the loss of his father, wondered why government is not fully concern with welfare of vigilante members and their families despite sacrificing their lives to save humanity.
Ideally he said education of children of the deceased ought to have been taken care by Niger state government Mariga and Rafi Local government where they got a distress call of bandits attack only to go there and lost their lives.
District head of Mariga Alh Ilyasu Ibrahim described the death of vigilante members as painful and sad stressing that during their life time they have contributed immensely towards protecting lives and properties of people of Mariga and some neighbouring local governments from both internal and external aggression and prayed Allah to forgive them.
Former Chairperson caretaker committee Mariga local government Alaja Riskat Giwa and Chairman yam sellers association Alh Isa Auwal in their seperate response appealed to governments at all level to prioritizes security by way of providing security agencies and vigilante group with much needed working tools to function effectively.