From Maiharaji Altine Gusau
Hundreds of women in Tsafe local government area of Zamfara state have blocked Gusau-Kaduna road to protest against persistent attacks by bandits, despite security measures said to be taken by the state government.
Gusau-Kaduna road is the most busiest road in the state as it links the state to several other states both in the North and the South.
The women who were carrying their children and belongings sat on the road, refusing to allow the motorists to pass through the road.
This had resulted to a serious hold-ups where hundreds of motorists were left stranded as they could neither move forward or backward.
Similarly, socioeconomic activities of the people of the area was brought to a standstill for several hours as the angry women refused to allow even the pedestrians to pass across the road.
One of the women who gave her name as Sadiya told The PUNCH that, they decided to come out to protest because of the bandits were always attacking and raping them and there was no action taken by the security agents to protect them.
Sadiya said, “We blocked the road in order to draw the attention of both the Government and the security agents to come to our rescue”.
Another woman, Talatu Sani said, she left her village of Cediya because the bandits used to go to the village to rape women and still their food and animals.
“I have to join the protest because the authorities are not doing anything to protect us from this hopeless situation.”
A commercial driver, Musa Shehu said he was coming from Funtua to Gusau not knowing what was going on, lamenting that he spent more than four hours before the road was cleared by the security agents.
“I spent more than five hours in a traffic jam because I couldn’t move forward and I could not come back because the women and their children were on the road”.
Efforts were made to talk to the spokesperson of the state police command SP Mohammed Shehu without success, as he didn’t pick up phone calls.
Similarly, the commissioner of security, DIG Mamman Tsafe (rtd) who is an indigine of Tsafe local government area where the incident occurred did not make any comment when contacted on phone by The PUNCH.
