A former Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mike Ejiofor, says the now dreaded insurgent group, Lakurawa, wreaking havoc in the North-western part of the country is not new.
Last week, the Defence Headquarters announced the emergence of Lakurawa as a new terror group operating in Sokoto and Kebbi states.
The Director, Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, said the terror group is exacerbating insecurity in the North-West region but the Armed Forces of Nigeria are already containing them.
But speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday, Ejiofor maintained that the group has been in existence before now.
The former DSS director, who noted that members of the terror group “aren’t Nigerians”, traced their origin to Niger Republic and Mali respectively.
“I was taken aback when I heard that Lakurawa was a new terrorist group. The truth is they aren’t new,” Ejiofor said on the programme.
The former DSS director went further to give a brief history of the origin of the insurgents.
“The group was initially formed by Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, the former Nigerien military Head of State, as a vigilante group that was working with them, but after his death, the Nigerien government neglected them, and they now scattered,” Ejiofor said.
“One of the district heads in Sokoto State invited them to help them with good intentions, not knowing they had their own agenda.”
He added that in 2018, the Sokoto State government “became worried when the group started showing their true colour and decided to expel them from the country through negotiations.
The part of the group from Mali left after the negotiation, but the other part of the group from Niger stayed behind and continued operation, according to Ejiofor.
On what the government and military should do to eradicate the terrorists, Ejiofor said that since the Lakurawa group isn’t as established or widespread as Boko Haram, the government can use the opportunity to flush them out.
Ejiofor is not the only one who has come out to say that the Lakurawa group is not new.
A security expert Bulama Bukarti and the Publicity Secretary of the ACF Tukur Muhammad-Baba who both appeared on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today, said the group has existed before now.
