Army says no soldier was killed, nor involved with illegal miners in Katsina

Army says no soldier was killed, nor involved with illegal miners in Katsina

By: James Bwala

The Nigerian Army said its attention has been drawn to stories in online publications on alleged gun duel, arising from a disagreement over gold nuggets in Magama village in Jibia LGA of Katsina State, where it was reported that two soldiers and seven illegal gold miners died.

While many media organizations reported the incident on the silence of the handlers of information from the military to balance their stories, a statement from the Director Army Public Relations, Brig. General Onyema Nwachukwu, made available to NEWSng on Monday night, denied such claims.

The statement reads:  “According to the publication, the incident occurred when the soldiers turned down an initially agreed offer of 500,000 naira per pit from the miners, but afterwards, turned around to demand more money on discovering the large quantity of gold nuggets found by the illegal miners in one of the pits.

“The  Nigerian Army wishes to unequivocally state that this story is baseless, unfounded, untrue and a mere figment of the writer’s imagination, aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the Nigerian Army, as no Nigerian soldier was killed, nor involved in any skirmish with illegal miners in Magama village on 5 January 2022.

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“Contrary to the insinuations peddled by the online medium, Nigerian Army troops deployed in the North West are committed and engrossed in the fight against banditry and other criminalities bedeviling that region. They are not permitted to participate in any form of mining, whether legitimate or illegitimate.

“Aside orchestrating disrepute, Fake News as this, has the potential to dampen the morale of the fighting troops, erode their fighting will and undermine the entire operations. This is certainly not what the troops require at this critical time.

“The general public are therefore urged to disregard the fake news as it is concocted to denigrate Nigerian Army troops, who are working tirelessly to ensure sanity and peace return to the North west region. We assure the general public of the unrelenting commitment of our troops to decisively tackle the banditry menace in the North West.”

Army says no soldier was killed, nor involved with illegal miners in Katsina