Confirming the incident in Gusau, Police Public Relations Officer in the state, SP Mohammed Shehu, said “it is true that the bandits killed 23 persons in the attack.

“At the moment, peace has been restored in the affected areas and a combined team of mobile and regular police, the Army and Air Force are on surveillance in the area.”

According to NAN, the Chairman of Kaura-Namoda Local Government Area, Alhaji Lawal Isa, said that bandits numbering over 100 riding on motorcycles, invaded the two communities around the time residents were going to their farms.

Isa said that the bandits may had come for reprisal following the killing of one of their suspected informants whose name he gave as simply Anas.

Anas was killed after he was trailed by local vigilante members who spotted him picking up a wife and child of a suspected bandit at Angwan Sarki village to take them to the man in the bush on his motorcycle.

“The vigilante members blocked the rider and killed all three instantly on Monday and at about 5 O’clock the following morning, the gang invaded the villages and killed the victims,” he said.

ALSO READ: Truck driver kills LASTMA officer during clearing of Apapa road

He said all the villagers killed had been buried in the two villages according to Islamic rites.

The Chairman appealed to security agencies to search out numerous hideouts of the bandits, especially at Gidan na Zumbure village “which now harbours the bandits and serve as their base for launching attacks’’.