Police, Army and Lawmakers Refuse Comment
Police, Army and Lawmakers Refuse Comment
By Luka Binniyat
[KADUNA] – Slavery is long gone from the Savannah of Central Nigeria, but sex slavery is a rising phenomenon in the forests of Nigeria’s Kaduna State, TruthNigeria has learned from an investigation.
A grim dimension is emerging from the violent campaigns of bandits ravaging Nigeria’s Northwest and North Central states as outlaws have taken over scores of villages in Southern Kaduna, murdering farmers and taking their wives and children into the forest as sex slaves. Some Nigerian authorities approached for comment have refused it.
The revelation is coming after a women’s union raised an alarm and appealed to the Kaduna state government for the rescue of 14 women who were captured by the bandits from farming communities between Shiroro County in Niger State more than two years ago and another 14 from Chikun County in Kaduna Oct. 7 and still kept incommunicado.
On October 2nd, 2021, gunmen described as bandits, stormed Kachuwe – a farming community in Niger near the Kaduna state border and killed 14 farmers after looting and setting the village ablaze. They then abducted 14 young women, according to the Women’s Wing of Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) said in a press Statement Oct. 16.
One of the abducted women died last year while another gave birth in captivity, but all have remained incommunicado with relations since October 2022 according to the statement signed by the National Coordinator, SOKAPU’s Women Wing, Mrs Jemutu Katarma.
SOKAPU is an umbrella body of the 57 ethnic nationalities in Southern Kaduna State, composed chiefly of Christians, which has a land mass of about 10,038 sq miles in the soil-rich woodland of central Nigeria. The region of Southern Kaduna holds about 51.2 percent of 8.5 million Kaduna residents.
In the statement, Katarma made a passionate appeal to Kaduna State Governor, Sen. Uba Sani for their rescue or provide any information on their fate, saying it had been traumatic for the families of the hostages to stay for over two years with no news about 13 women and a boy kidnapped in Niger state near the Kaduna border. The residents kidnapped two years ago in Niger had fled from Chikun County hoping to escape the bandit raids.
Part of the statement reads:
“It is a very horrible experience for the relations of these captives to live day and night not knowing the fate of their loved ones,” SOKAPU women leader pointed out.
14 women abducted on Oct 7
“Again, on Saturday 7th October, 2023, in Chikuri village, in Chikun LGA (county), bandits entered Maikudi farms where villagers were working on portions of a rented farm.
“Bandits attacked the farm and kidnapped 14 women and a boy. Among the women is 54-year-old Mrs Lydia Dogara and her 20-year-old daughter, Linda Dogara.
“Therefore, we can confirm that at least 27 women and girls and 4 boys who are citizens of Kaduna state from Chikun LGA are in the hands of kidnappers, with one already dead,” she said.
“They are however just some other victims suffering the same fate in the state unreported in the media.
Forced to give sex to bandits
Speaking later in an exclusive chat with TruthNigeria about the motive of the bandits Katarma said, “I don’t have to mention in the press statement that these young women have already become forced ‘wives’ of the bandits. It will be a big stain on their names and that of their families if mention that aspect, because most of them are married,” she said.
“We are still hopeful that they will return home one day, somehow,” she said.
“Since the bandits refused to accept the amount that they had directed the families to pay, it is obvious that they have been forced into staying with the bandits as their wives or mistresses,” she said, pointing out that it was over two years that they were taken away.
“It is the same with the ones that were kidnapped from Chikuri village. The bandits are yet to call and demand for ransom. And these are mostly young women. They are abusing them in the bushes,” she said.
“There are other women in these bushes who are kept as forced wives. But if we don’t get permission of families, we can’t mention names. But they are there,” she said.
In fact, capture and sex enslavement in Southern Kaduna has been traumatizing communities for years and was reported in The Epoch Times in 2022 by Masara Kim, currently the senior editor of TruthNigeria.com In the summer of last year, a member of the Nigerian House of Representatives raised an alarm, reporting that hundreds of women were being abducted every week and forced into sexual slavery by bandit terrorists in Nigeria’s northern regions.
The Honorable Umar Barde, who represented Kajuru and Chikun counties in the House of Representatives from 2019 to June 2023, spoke with the Epoch Times, revealing that these terrorists were subjecting women of all ages, including teenagers, to sexual violence.
According to Barde, Kaduna State was one of the areas most affected by these horrifying incidents. In one such attack on June 29, 2022, motorcycle-riding terrorists targeted the small farming town of Kasan Kogi in Kachia County. During this attack, they kidnapped 27 residents, including 21 women and six men, as confirmed by Ezekiel Garba, a pastor at the Chapel of Good News Church in Kasan Kogi.
Tragically, the terrorists killed two residents and made a chilling threat to forcibly marry off the abducted women to their fellow gang members, all while demanding a ransom of 100 million Nigerian naira (equivalent to US $150,000).
Garba conveyed the terrorists’ sinister intentions, stating, “They said they will use our women to produce children that will, in turn, fight us.” Heartbreakingly, his own wife was among those abducted.
Sex slavery in Dogo Gide’s camps confirmed
Ishaq Usman Kasai, a security analyst and Chairman, Birnin Gwari Emirate Progressive Union, said that sex slavery was a tool to enforce payment of ransoms demanded by Dogo Gide in Kaduna.
“Female victims held as sex slaves (in Dogo Gide controlled forests) is confirmed,” he told TruthNigeria Nigeria, “All females experienced that, but it happens especially to female victims whose families could not raise the demanded amount to pay the bandits as ransom,” he added.
“Issue of rape by bandits depends on the Bandits’ group,” he said, “Some group do not engage in rape but are only after money and killing of victims whose families could not be able to pay for his or her ransom,” he added.
‘There are hundreds of Bandits groups with independent leadership but are all loyal to Dogo Gide who they pay tribute to” he said.
“Most groups are engaged in rape,” he added, saying that Dogo Gide enjoys the loyalty and protection of Dogo Gide in large swaths of the expansive Savanah and Sahelian quasi-forests of the Northwest Nigeria.
Government officials’ mum
After two days of efforts to reach relevant government officials for reaction or comments on the alleged dark crimes against these women, not a single one responded to TruthNigeria.
Senator Lawal Adamu Usman, representing Kaduna Central Senatorial Zone under which Chikun county falls, did not respond to questions sent to him via sms and to his official E-mail.
It was same with the House of Representative member representing Chikun/Kajuru Federal Constituency, Hon. Abubakar Ikenne, who rejected several calls put to him and did not respond to questions sent to phone via sms/
Also, when asked to speak over the development as relates to the military task force battling the bandits, the Spokesman, 1st Army Division, Nigeria Army, Kaduna, Lt Col. Musa Yahaya said he was busy. He never returned his calls.
It was same with the Spokesman Kaduna State Police Command, ASP Mansir Hassan.
“I will get back to you later. I have not been briefed on these kidnappings,” he said, and never returned calls to TruthNigeria.
Kaduna in the Northwest of Nigeria and Niger State in Central Nigeria are hotbeds for the heinous activities of armed Fulani herdsmen and bandits.
It has been reported that the two criminal groups killed more than the infamous Boko Haram Islamist terror group operating in the Northeast of Nigeria since 2015
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Luka Binniyat covers terrorism for TruthNigeria from Kaduna.
