Zamfara State Chief Executive, Dauda Lawal, said the recent military airstrike in the North-Western state was not intentional.
Lawal expressed this during an interview on a televised show, where he sympathized with the families of the incident.
“It was not intentional. It was in the process of fighting these bandits (that) they were struck,” he said.
“The Chief of Air Staff has set up a committee to commiserate with the state government as well as the people that were affected. They also went there yesterday to do on the spot assessment to see who was involved and what happened to guide against future occurrence.”
He said he knew of the military operation before the tragedy occurred, saying that he personally invited the Air Force to neutralise some bandits who were attacking the area.
During the programme, he communicated hope that the military has all the capacity to handle bandits activities within one month.
The Zamfara State Chief Executive said the era of notorious bandits’ leader, Bello Turji, is numbered, saying he would before long be eliminated similarly as other top bandits have been neutralised.
On January 11, more than 16 residents were killed after a military air strike tore through the Tungar Kara community in the Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
Stressed by the circumstance, the Nigerian Air Force deployed a fact-finding team deployed to investigate the recent military air strikes tragedy in the state.
The team met with Lead Representative Lawal at the Government House in Gusau.
Security operatives have been engaging bandits terrorising north-west and central states. The bandits attack villages, burn homes, kill and kidnap residents for ransom.
A few accidental air strikes have taken place in recent months, including a Christmas Day assault that killed no less than 10 civilians in neighbouring Sokoto state.
In 2023, no less than 85 civilians, mostly women and children, attending a Muslim religious gathering at a village in Kaduna state were killed after they were mistaken for bandits.
In January 2017, at least 112 people were killed when a jet struck a camp housing 40,000 people who had been displaced by jihadist violence in a town near the Cameroonian border.
