Zubair Abdurra’uf, a senior councillor of the Birnin Gwari Emirate, has expressed concern over the Ansaru terrorist group setting up a second government in the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State and levying taxes on the local populace.
Abdurra’uf claimed in an interview with Channels Television that the notorious Boko Haram terrorist group’s wing entered Birnin Gwari more than 12 years ago pretending to teach the locals about Islam before turning to rebels who detested western education.
He said: “We have a government within the government.
“There are some areas within Birnin Gwari, particularly the eastern part, whereby the Ansaru (group) administer this territory because they give directives to the citizens who are there and they decide what to be done.
“Most of the schools in the area are deserted because they issued a decree that nobody should go to any school or have any form of formal education.”
Abdurra’uf stated that Birnin Gwari is large and has a difficult landscape which includes mountainous areas, and borders a forest in Zamfara and other states.
He said that the area had been abandoned by government institutions after the militants had also overthrown the local chiefs and established their rule.
The councillor said: “At times, the locals have no option but to take some of their issues to these terrorists for adjudication because of the absence of some of the institutions of Kaduna government that will normally take care of these issues.”
Abdurra’if further stated that the Ansaru group are no different from Boko Haram, as they have the same beliefs but carry out their operations in a different way.
“The ideological conviction of Ansaru is not different from Boko Haram because the Ansaru is a splinter group of Boko Haram and whatever you see Ansaru do is in consonance with whatever Boko Haram are doing but only that the modus operandi of the two groups differ.”