Suspected Fulani Hoodlums Attack Market In Enugu State, Loot Shops, Injure Traders

According to a report by SaharaReporters, some suspected Fulani herders who were pretending to be tricycle riders in Enugu State, South East Nigeria have caused a stir in the state.

The herders invaded Benue Yam sellers in Artisan Market, attacked them with daggers and stolen hundreds of tubers of yams.

Artisan market dominated by northerners selling goat and sheep is located at Naira Triangle by Enugu Okigwe road, adjacent to the NNPC Limited Mega filling station.

There have been reports of organised attacks on non-Hausa/Fulani trading in the market and nearby on a weekly basis. Late last year, some of the criminals who had taken over the market attacked and burnt a trailer truck and police patrol van.

However, SaharaReporters learnt that the latest attack took place on Sunday morning when Hausa/Fulani boys in their numbers invaded the yam section of the market which people from Benue State dominated and attacked them.

A video of one of the victims of the attack which SaharaReporters obtained on Tuesday showed a young man lying in hospital bed with machete cuts over his body. The video also shows that one of his fingers is severed.

The victim who was identified as John was heard narrating on the hospital bed how six Hausa/Fulani boys invaded their shops, attacked him with dagger knives, and thereafter looted their yams.

He narrated, "After striking me with their dagger knives, I fainted. They didn’t run away, they stayed and were discussing in Hausa that since I was alone, they should kill me. I prayed to God to give me strength and save me. Then I was already bleeding profusely. I was bleeding from the finger they severed, head and all over the body. So I took off and ran. They pursued me and I hid.

"After about 15 minutes they went back inside the Artisan Market, mobilised other Fulani/Hausa boys again and returned to the place where we were selling yams. For more than 30 minutes they were there loading our yams in their 'Keke' tricycle. They ransacked my shop, collected money and parked every valuable thing that was there and left. My own yams they carried away are 210 tubers."

Lamenting how the Hausa/Fulani boys in the area had turned into terrorists, he said "you can imagine finding yourself in the midst of six people who have been using dagger knives for more than 20 years coming to kill you. I fought hard to survive otherwise I would have been a dead man by now."

"The most surprising thing is that they went back to the market, came back with other boys. They blocked the road, and chased people in the compound into their houses. You just saw them, you saw terrorists. If you saw the knives those boys held and I believe that even the second set of boys they brought had with them guns."

Reacting to the development, a resident of Enugu who identified herself as Ozioma Ejiofor and who took the said John to hospital called on the government of Enugu state to rise to how police and other security agencies especially the Department of State Services allowed the criminals to breed unchallenged.

Ozioma said, “If Hausa/Fulanis can have access to the Mega filling station in Enugu State capital that means there is more to them that the eyes have not even seen and for their guts there's more to come.”

“Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi should do something urgent to flush out these terrorists and ensure that the new Artisan Market shouldn’t be allowed to be used as terrorist cells.”

Efforts by SaharaReporters to speak with the Enugu state police command were not successful as the command’s spokesperson, DSP Daniel Ndukwe, didn’t take his calls.