Borno Residents Threaten to Join Insurgents

The rising cost of living in the country assumed another dimension on Thursday with an attack on a truck carrying food items in Suleja area of Niger State.

This is just as hundreds of residents of Dikwa town in Borno State protested and raised serious concern over hunger, threatening to join terrorists in the state.

The developments come amid the nationwide hardship that has triggered protests in different parts of the country.

Early this month, there was a protest in Minna, the capital of Niger State, in which a group of women blocked the Minna-Bida Road at the popular Kpakungu roundabout to express their grievances over the rising cost of food items, which has made access to three square meals per day to become increasingly unattainable for millions of people. 

In what look like another turn of events, soldiers had to open fire yesterday when some youths attack trucks loaded with foodstuff in the Suleja area of Niger State. 

Alhassan Abdullahi, a witness, told our correspondent that many trucks from Abuja and heading for Kaduna were blocked by the hoodlums, who burnt tyres on the road. 

He said many bags of assorted foodstuffs, especially rice, were stolen before soldiers arrived at the scene. 

“It took the intervention of soldiers who arrived at the scene and started firing gunshots in the air to scare the hoodlums away. But even at that, many of them went away with bags of rice and cartons of spaghetti and other food items. “We learnt commercial motorcycle riders are also planning a protest. They would have done it since yesterday but we didn’t know what stopped them,” he said.

Source: Daily Trust