Tofa community at Magami District of Gusau Local Government Area of Zamfara State has been deserted.
The is due to the incessant activities of bandits in the troubled area.
The residents, however, want to return to their community, as the rainy season sets in so that they could engage in farming which is one of their major occupations.
The residents claim they have written to the Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, DIG Mamman TSafe retired, and have demanded the deployment of combined security forces to protect and enable them to access their farmlands.
Tofa community is 40 kilometres away from Gusau, the Zamfara State capital.
It is located along the Dansadau axis, where terrorist activities were said to have emanated from, over a decade ago.
That community has been witnessing constant attacks by the suspected terrorists, forcing them to leave to seek refuge in relatively safer places.
The residents of the affected community said they have lodged complaints to the appropriate authorities, to deploy security operatives, to assist in securing them, but all to no avail.
The residents are once again, appealing to the Federal and Zamfara State Governments to deploy security to their troubled area, to enable those who have left to return to carry out their farming activities, as the rains are here.
They also lamented ransom and levies paid to the terrorists to secure the freedom of their kidnapped relatives and to access their farmlands to harvest their crops.
Some of the women in the area narrated their ordeals.
Efforts to reach the Zamfara State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Retired DIG Mamman TSafe, to speak on the government’s plans to address the challenge were unsuccessful.
Editor Paul Akhagbemhe
