Lakurawa Terror Group Using Drones To Track Military, Civilians – Experts

Lakurawa Terror Group Using Drones To Track Military, Civilians – Experts

By Aremu Adebayo

A senior fellow of the Extremism Policy Unit at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Bulama Bukarti, said on Monday that the Lakurawa insurgent group has been surveilling communities and military formations in the North-West.

Bukarti, a human rights lawyer, stated this while appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

Last Thursday, the Director of Defence Headquarters Media Operations, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, identified the terrorists as a group originating from the Republic of Niger, following a military coup in the country.

Our corresondent reports that barely 48 hours after the announcement by the military, the terror group attacked Mera town in Augie Local Government Area of Kebbi State, killing at least 15 people.

However, Bukarti, who has researched the Boko Haram insurgency for many years, argued that the armed group is not a new one, as speculated.

Bukarti further disclosed that, aside from possessing sophisticated weaponry, the insurgents are also using drones to monitor activities in military formations and communities within their domain.

He said, “Not only do they have heavy weapons, but they also have drones and are surveilling villages and military formations with them. I think we should take the security threat in a region already divided by bandit violence very seriously.”

He continued, “Their ideology is not different from that of Boko Haram, except that they present themselves more like police because they claim not to want to kill the people. They say they are only fighting the government and its apparatus. This espouses an extreme, violent extremist ideology.”

“But the good news is that my research so far has revealed that they have not been accepted by the communities. I have not found an example of local young people joining them. They are still foreigners. But they are large in number based on the information I am getting.”

The sentiment was echoed by the Publicity Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Prof. Tukur Muhammad-Baba.

Muhammad-Baba, who also confirmed that the terrorists were not a new group, alleged that the Department of State Services is aware of their activities.

The ACF spokesman further warned that if the insurgents are not stopped from attempting to assert their authority in the North-West, they may begin enforcing the closure of schools and clinics.

He said, “Everything Bulama said is true. It is consistent with our information because I have carried out research in that area, too. It should be a cause for concern because this is not a new (terror) group. It emerged between 2017 and 2018. At least the DSS is aware of it.

“At that time, we thought they had been chased out, only to discover it was a deal for them to leave or be attacked. So they decided to leave and got rid of the cattle they possessed. We don’t know whether they took the cattle from people.

“They are trying to establish a local and foreign justice administration system in these communities. We cannot allow that. If we are talking about Islamic law, Sokoto has Sharia law. But this is not the type of Sharia they are practising. They intervene in disputes and enforce rules. We fear they will go further, like closing schools and clinics.”