The Chairman of Bungudu Local Government Area of Zamfara State, Nura Umar Abdullahi, has been abducted by suspected bandits following a late-night attack on his residence that reportedly lasted more than two hours. The assailants, said to be about 20 in number, killed four people, including two police officers attached to the chairman, a vigilante identified as Nura ADC, and a water vendor popularly known as Ba’are, before escaping with the council boss and four other victims.

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According to Daily Trust, a family member and one of those initially abducted but later released, Abdulssalam Yunusa Mai Jama’a, popularly known as Abbati, said the attackers stormed the residence between 10:40 p.m. and 10:50 p.m., demanding to know the chairman’s whereabouts. He said the gunmen insisted they had accurate intelligence that Abdullahi had returned home with three other people. Yunusa disclosed that the attackers struggled to gain access through three entrances before eventually reaching the chairman, adding that they later released the chairman’s wife and daughter after Abdullahi pleaded with them to spare his family and take only him.

The attackers eventually marched Abdullahi and four others into the bush. The other abductees were identified as Malam Halliru Ahmad Soja, Husseini Naira, Dan Tandu, and Akilu, a domestic worker at the chairman’s residence. Another family member, Anas Ibrahim, alleged that residents had alerted security agencies after noticing suspicious movements in the town before the attack but claimed no preventive action was taken. He also alleged that the bandits positioned armed men around nearby houses to prevent intervention and that the chairman’s elder brother, Alhaji Bello, a former state auditor, sustained three gunshot wounds while attempting to assist. Family members criticised what they described as a delayed security response, insisting the abduction could have been prevented if authorities had acted promptly.