‘Nigerian govt won’t end banditry, they benefit from it’ – terrorist Bello Turji tells

• Bello Turji said in response to the recent aerial bombardment of his home by military aircraft.
• Turji claimed that the government had incited the terrorists to violate their peace agreement with the locals.

The popular terrorist and bandits leader, Bello Turji Kachalla has claimed that the Nigerian government is uninterested in putting an end to banditry because some of its officials profit from it.

Bello Turji claimed that the government provoked the terrorists to violate their peace agreement with the locals in response to the recent aerial bombardment of his home by military jets.

Early this year, Turji and his gang carried out a massacre in Zamfara that resulted in the deaths of nearly 200 people, including women and children.

On August 21 of this year, however, Senator Muhammad Hassan Nasiha, the deputy governor of the state of Zamfara, declared that Turji had chosen peace. However, he narrowly avoided death on September 18 when the Nigerian Air Force bombed his home in Fakai village, Shinkafi local government area, Zamfara state, killing 12 of his fighters and relatives in the process.

On November 14, the Defence Headquarters then issued a warrant for his arrest together with 18 other terrorists, placing an N5 million reward on each of their heads.

The bandits’ warlord accused the government of violating a peace agreement they had with him to put an end to banditry and defend the citizens of the Shinkafi axis from any attacks in response to the attack on his home.

Bello Turji expressed his resentment over the air raid on his home and the deaths of innocent people while speaking on the phone with an online Hausa television that Saturday Vanguard was watching. Turji had previously agreed with government officials and community leaders to give up banditry.

His words: “I wonder if truly the government wanted to kill me. I think they only wanted to provoke me by making me renege on my promise not to kill anyone. If they could spot my house why couldn’t they sight and kill me because I only left the house a couple of minutes when the bombardment occurred.

“The people should know their enemy from the onset. The government is provoking us so that we will take revenge on the poor masses.

“The government is only fooling the gullible and naive people that they want to end banditry whereas, in actual sense, they are the ones fueling the activities of the bandits and also benefiting from them.

“Peace is priceless and I’m ready to be a peace advocate unless the government wants me to be a warmonger. I’m ready for either peace or war. Whatever, the government wants, we can give them a multitude.”

According to him, “there have not been any attacks in the last five months since we reached a truce with the government but now that the military has attacked our home, we feel betrayed especially after the death of vulnerable people in the air strikes. The government only succeeded in destroying some parts of my house and other buildings belonging to innocent people.

“For the past five months, we didn’t attack or kill anyone around Shinkafi. As a result, farming and other businesses were flourishing without any hitches. I feel embarrassed when my name was mentioned after the attacks by other terrorists”.

According to SaharaReporters, Bello Turji charges locals a N20 million protection fee.

Turji, a notorious bandit leader, exercised his authority in his area of control by imposing a N20 million “Protection Levy” on the Moriki community, which is located 33 kilometers along the Kaura Namoda-Shinkafi road, as the Defense Headquarters declared they were looking for Turji and announced a N5 million price tag on him.

The N20 million levy had been imposed by Turji on the villagers, who had been warned to pay up by Sunday, November 27, or risk his wrath.

If the money was not paid by the deadline, he threatened to attack the Zamfara village.

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A resident, Sani Moriki, said, “after he imposed the levy we met at the community level to see what we could do to raise the said amount of money bearing in our minds the consequences of ignoring his demand.

“We came up with the idea that every household in the community must pay N6,500 and if we add it up we will get the N20 million for onward delivery before the deadline ends.

“We were able to raise N10.6 million as some community members defaulted. We used N100,000 to buy them packs of cigarettes, loaves of bread, soft drinks, and recharge cards as they instructed.

“Seven community members were mobilized and dispatched to deliver the money at an agreed spot near Kasayawa, a community located 1km east of Moriki town. After the delivery team arrived at the location, seventeen Turji boys rode to the spot and asked for the money and other items we bought for them.

“However, when Bello Turji’s attention was drawn to the fact that the money brought was N10.5 million not N20 million as agreed he became angry and ordered his boys to hold five out of seven members of the delivery team. He asked them to take the residents to one of his camps in the Jirari forest straddling Zurmi and Shinkafi local government areas. Two of them escaped and arrived home this morning.

“We are now put on edge and we have started making effort to reach out to him so that we will deliver the balance of N10 million to him. We are in serious trouble as a people,”