The latest major attack in Oke-Ode, Ifelodun Local Government Area (LGA), which left over 10 people dead, has spread fear and anxiety among residents, with many abandoning their farms, businesses and other means of livelihood to relocate to Ilọrin town and environs in search of safety.
The police confirmed 12 deaths, including hunters, newly recruited forest guards, vigilantes and civilians, with many others injured during the bloody incident.
Weekend Trust reports that economic activities have been grounded in the affected communities.
A viral video of a grieving woman sitting beside two male corpses – her husband and his friend – captured the emotional trauma surviving victims and relatives pass through on a daily basis.
‘They have killed my husband, Ishola, and I cannot run from his corpse. I have no other person; I am the one videoing myself. He was coming home when they broke the glass of the vehicle he was in and killed him and his brother. They also killed 10 vigilantes and abducted a husband and wife’, the distraught woman said amidst tears.
The experience of Ishola’s widow has become a daily occurrence in many of the affected communities.
The gunmen brought international dimension to the issue with the kidnap of a Chinese mining investor in Oreke in June.
The police said that two of their officers, an Assistant Superintendent of Police and an Inspector, both attached to the 45 Police Mobile Force, Abuja, were killed in the incident. However, more than four months after the incident, the expatriate is yet to be found despite the fact that the abductors reportedly demanded a ransom of N1 billion.
At the last count, findings by Weekend Trust show that over 71 people have been killed, over 86 kidnapped and over 57 communities affected, many of them desolate. Several other attacks have gone unreported.
The situation in the state has been attributed to several factors, including the inaction of past and present governments.
The latest spate of insecurity in the state began with the deadly activities of the Mahmuda group, a terrorist organisation that occupies the Kainji National Park, which stretches from Kwara to Niger State and beyond.
A top military officer involved in the ongoing onslaught against the bandits said the forest was bigger than two states.
According to locals, the group, which was initially welcomed as wandering preachers 14 years ago, snowballed into a merciless terror group. Initially carrying out sporadic disturbances, they later controlled parts of the park like warlords, burning farms, kidnapping villagers, killing vigilantes and displacing entire communities.
“There were just seven of them when they arrived – young married men claiming to preach and farm. Nobody suspected what they would become,” a community leader in Kaiama, one of the affected local governments recalled.
Weekend Trust reports that the evolution of the group from being preachers to militants was gradual but deliberate; and climaxed after they accused locals of betrayal.
According to community sources, Mahmuda began acquiring weapons, recruiting heavily and extorting villagers under the guise of communal protection.
While the group operated majorly around Kaiama and Baruten in the northern part of the state before the military was brought in to degrade them, some locals said they were also involved in the last attack at Babanla in Ifelodun Local Government Area on Friday, August 8, 2025 when over 200 armed bandits stormed the town.
The assailants, riding on motorcycles, attacked the divisional police headquarters, looted a market and set the police station ablaze. Five people were killed, including a police officer identified as Adejumo Wasiu.
As a result, over 3,000 residents from 15 communities, including Babanla, reportedly fled their homes, seeking safety in Ilọrin and neighbouring towns.
A resident of Babanla, Hamzat Waliya, who fled the community as a result of the incident said that she escaped miraculously.
‘When they entered the community, I saw them and ran inside to pray. They went to my mother’s shop, looted the foodstuffs there and kidnapped two people.
‘There were over 200 riding on motorcycles. This is our fourth month in Ilọrin’, the 19-years-old and mother of one said, calling on the government to come to their aid.
A community leader from Babanla, Mr. Yusuf Jimoh said the problem began about 19 years ago.
Jimoh explained: ‘Babanla used to be very peaceful and bustling in trade, but about 19 years ago, we started receiving strangers who were brought in with trucks from different tribes.
‘Initially, they used to raid markets to loot foodstuffs before they graduated to kidnapping’.
He listed the affected villages in Babanla, Ifelodun Local Government as Oreke 1; Oreke 11; Budo Idowu; Gahun and Olohuntele.
Others are Idinya; Ayeeke; Aifowomo; Ologoma; Ologorun; Shagbe; Famale and Bankole. He said there had been three incidents in Babanla that claimed many lives, adding that over 100 people have been killed since the attacks started.
‘The first time they came, they killed 10 people. The second attack claimed over 20 lives, and the third involved about three casualties, including a commercial driver. Many of the affected villages have been deserted.
‘To tell you their audacity, at times they feast with the animals they see around when they visit some of the deserted villages’, Yusuf, who said he accommodated 33 victims who fled Babanla in his Ilọrin residence, said.
According to him, since the last major incident where they killed six people, there is no day that people don’t get kidnapped. And many victims have died in captivity.
For many residents of Ifelodun and other communities in the southern part of the state, the fear of Baba Sango forest, where the bandits terrorising the state are hibernating, is the beginning of wisdom. Many of the victims have described the vast expanse of land as another government entity by the bandits.
He stated: ‘The forest, which begins from Oro Ago and is in front of Oro river, stretches to Patigi, Lafiagi and Egbe in Kogi State.
‘They have turned the vast forest to a place of refuge after they launch any attack. You can trek 100 miles inside that forest and they are many.
‘My brother, who recently gained freedom from the attackers, narrated that different sects of the bandits occupied three cells there. And one of the cells is more populated than the entire Babanla. Their wives and children strap AK-47 on their shoulders all the time and always at alert. That is the place from where all the bandits in Kwara now launch their attacks’.
Locals told Weekend Trust: ‘One of the most deadly attacks on the residents of the zone occurred around June when gunmen in military uniform opened fire on a market in Ilesha Baruba, killing six people. The casualties include four civilian men, a vigilante and a teenager. Another vigilante was killed the same night in nearby Kaiama. Since then, over 15 vigilantes have been killed, with many others injured, kidnapped or held for ransom in suspected reprisal attacks over accusations of working with the government and the military’.
In July, the security situation reached a worrying point following the exodus of residents from Lata Nna after heavily armed bandits stormed the communities, burning vehicles and engaging in gunfire with vigilantes. Residents fled en masse, taking refuge in neighbouring communities.
The incident followed a deadly encounter a few days earlier when the bandits dared security operatives in Gada Woro, along Patigi road, near Gbugbu, in a gun battle that left six people dead. The victims include four vigilantes and a police officer. Two soldiers, two police officers and six vigilantes also reportedly sustained gunshot wounds during the confrontation.
According to locals, the impact of the activities of the bandits has been catastrophic, with farming, which is the region’s lifeblood, worst hit.
A community leader who requested anonymity said: ‘They burnt our farms, killing about 200 livestock in the process. Forty farmers were kidnapped in one attack inside their farms and made to pay N10 million and 10 motorcycles valued at N1.3 million each as ransom. In another case, a victim was forced to work for the group in the forest for five months until a N10 million ransom was fully paid.
‘They don’t spare anyone. An immigration officer who was kidnapped alongside a customs officer and some others died in captivity. They don’t like security personnel. They see them as a threat to their reign’.
However, following a recent military joint operation inside the Kainji National Park, where 12 bandits were arrested, residents said the attacks in places like Kaiama had reduced, but they still live in fear.
According to the latest information obtained from residents, attacks in Edu and Patigi local government areas in Kwara north have occurred in no fewer than 52 communities, resulting in the death of 23 persons and over 50 kidnapped.
It was gathered that in Lafiagi Emirate, the affected communities are Lafiagi Toen; Kpandaragi; Bokungi; Maganiko Ndanangi; Ndeji; Gamalegi; Haruna Kata; Gbale; Guye Dadi; Bishewa; Edogi Dukun; Ekko and Wariku.
Others are Motokun; Lata Nna; Lade; Lalagi; Sakpefu; Essanti; Lata Woro; Ndanakun; Mari; Lile; Dina; Gbogi; Kusoniguba; Kakafu; Gbangede; Ekati and Bologi, among others in Patigi Emirate.
Tsaragi Emirate has witnessed attacks in Tsaragi, Kusomunu, Ndafatako and Koko-Nna/Yanna, among other places.
In Kaiama LGA, the affected places are Duruma, Kemanji, Nuku and Tenebo. There were some minor incidents at Nano.
For Baruten LGA, residents listed Ilesha Baruba, Okuta, Boriya and Shiya town, Kosubisu and Gure as the most affected.
Although the situation has drastically reduced in many parts of Kwara Central after several incidents in places like Oko-Olowo and parts of Asa Local Government Area, the district is not totally immune.
A former lawmaker, who once represented the council, Hon. Wahab Aliyu Opakunle recently lamented that farmers and traders in his Afon constituency could no longer go about their businesses safely.
‘After my trip to the United Kingdom, I wanted to be a farmer, but I cannot go home now. I am crying and bleeding within myself because of the security situation in Ila-Oja/Aboto/Odo-Ode ward. Our market has been paralysed; and farmers cannot go to farms’, he said.
A resident and one of the youth leaders in Patigi who gave his name as Alhaji Mohammed and preferred to communicate through Whatsapp messages stated: ‘Several interlinked factors seem to be driving the insecurity in Edu and Patigi. It is a spillover from neighbouring regions.
‘Kwara north shares borders with Niger and Kogi states. The ease of movement through under-controlled border zones allows bandits/criminal elements to enter, exit and smuggle weapons. And villages in Patigi have been voicing out over helicopter landings in their bushes’.
He stated that poverty, unemployment and economic marginalisation were also contributors. He also said that since people have limited access to jobs, markets and social services, they were more vulnerable to giving out information to bandits concerning their communities so that they would benefit from the payment of ransom, explaining that it is a new dimension to the problem.
‘Land use, conflict over resources, and environmental stress like shrinking grazing lands are creating friction with farming communities like Lata-Nna in Patigi and other villages.
‘The availability of small arms and light weapons, motorcycles and mobility in forested/rural areas give bandits the ability to strike and disappear. To worsen this, there are gaps in intelligence gathering and weak security presence. Remote areas are harder to reach and security forces sometimes respond late or lack local knowledge, coupled with insufficient community-security collaboration.
‘There are opportunistic political manipulations. Our leaders threaten us whenever we talk about the menace’, he stated.
Penultimate week, the the state government approved the relocation of the 2025 Batch B, Stream II of the National Youth Service Corps’ orientation camp from its permanent site in Yikpata, Edu LGA to the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilọrin over insecurity.
Also, following a meeting by the chairmen of the seven affected local government areas – Ifelodun, Irepodun, Isin, Oke-Ero, Ekiti, Offa and Oyun in Kwara south – cattle markets were temporarily shut before a decision was taken to modify it following a meeting with traditional rulers to allow restricted hours of operation following a concern raised by Fulani groups.
The Chairman of Ifelodun LGA, Hadji Femi Yusuf said the cattle market was fueling the situation as it had become an avenue for the bandits to gather information. But locals pushed back the narrative. While that was still on, the Kwara State Ministry of Health relocated its scheduled medical and surgical outreach programme for Ifelodun from Oke-Ode to Omupo Cottage Hospital. The Commissioner for Health, Dr Amina Ahmed El-Imam, said the decision was taken after reviewing the security situation in the area.
The Chairman of the Miyetti Allah Fulaku Yeso Yeso Development Association, Alhaji Ali Mohammed Jonwuro, said that in the last two months, over 3,000 cattle were rustled in four local government areas – Edu, Patigi, Ifelodun and Irepodun, following various attacks on communities.
Jonwuro, who spoke with victims of cattle rustling and kidnapping on the sideline of an emergency meeting of the association in Ilorin, said N10 million was the least amount paid as ransom to secure the release of members of the association who were kidnapped.
He traced the insecurity ravaging the state to the inability of some community leaders to conduct a thorough background check on strangers coming to settle in their various communities.
Jonwuro said the attitude of singling out the Fulani tribe for vilification as perpetrators of criminal acts of kidnapping and banditry must cease, insisting that commission of crime transcends ethnic inclination.
He appealed to the state government through the Emir of Ilorin, Dr. Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, to prevail on communities that had shown hostilities toward their members fleeing from troubled settlements to accommodate them.
‘More than 50 of our people have been kidnapped. The least ransom we have paid is N10 million; and some victims were not even released after that. We have lost more than 3,000 cows to rustlers. Other animals were also rustled. Many people don’t know that we (Fulani) are the most affected by the activities of these bandits. It is true that some people in our fold are criminals, but it is not a peculiar situation. We also have criminally minded people in other tribes.
‘We have also had a situation where some monarchs in the southern part of the state accommodated strangers, especially those running away from Zamfara State’, he said.
Muideen Hamidat, who has since relocated to Ilọrin with his family after the Babanla incident, told Weekend Trust that, ‘the killings going on there are too much and we want the government to do something. One of the most scary moments for me was when they came shooting sporadically while we were in the market. I had never experienced such situation in my entire life’.
Source: Weekend Trust
