By Auwalu Yusuf/ Daura
Alhaji Musa Umar, the district head of Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s hometown, has been kidnapped by four unidentified gunmen.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the kidnappers stormed Umar’s Daura residence at 7pm on Wednesday and sporadically shot into the air, scaring the hell out of bystanders, who scampered for safety.
Umar had just returned from the mosque where he took part in the evening prayer when the incident happened.
Umar, who is reportedly the father-in-law of the ADC to President Buhari, was sitting in front of his house with some people when the gun totting men came.
A witness told the News Agency of Nigeria that the kidnappers came in a Peugeot 406 saloon car.
After the gunmen left, the Daura council chairman Malam Abba Mato and hundreds of sympathizers came to Umar’s residence, to discuss the bewildering incident.
Kidnapping has been on the rise in northern Nigeria. On Monday, chairman of Universal Basic Education Commission, Dr. Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar and his daughter, Yasmin were kidnapped on the notorious Abuja-Kaduna highway. Abubakar’s driver was killed by the gunmen.
They were released the following day after some ransom was paid to the gunmen.
At a quarterly meeting with Northern Traditional Rulers in Kaduna on Tuesday, the acting Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Mohammed Adamu, said that 1,071 persons lost their lives in crime-related cases across the country in the first quarter of 2019.
Between January and April, at least 685 persons were kidnapped across the country.
He said 767 of the persons killed were from the North.
Giving a further breakdown of the deaths, Adamu said the North-West topped the death list with 436; North-Central came second with 250; while the South-South geopolitical zone recorded 130 deaths during the period under review.
He added that Zamfara State with 203 murder cases topped the national prevalence rate, Kaduna State followed closely with 112 reported cases while 90 people were killed in Benue State.
