The head of Rakyabu village in the Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State, Magaji Sa’idu, and the Chief Imam of the village Malam Abdullahi, have been abducted by bandits.

An indigene of the area, Amadu Mohammed told The PUNCH that the village head and the Chief Imam were abducted from their houses by bandits on Sunday night.

The bandits, according to Mohammed, demanded N5m as ransom, out of which the community had only raised N500,000 through donations by the people of the village.

He lamented that despite collecting the N500,000 the bandits refused to release the village head and the Imam.

He said, “When the bandits sent a message demanding N5m as ransom, the families of the two abducted people could not get any reasonable amount.

“As such, we decided to launch an appeal fund where we generated the sum of N500,000 and handed the amount to the bandits.

“They collected the money and told us that, we must pay the remaining balance which is N4.5m.”

Mohammed said raising N4.5m was an impossible task for the community, more so, as the bandits had rustled and stolen all the animals they could have sold to raise some money.

“We have nothing to sell and get the money needed by the bandits because they have taken everything from us,” he said.

He called on the state government and security agencies to do something to rescue their village head and the Chief Imam.

The spokesperson of the state police command, ASP Yazid Abubakar, could not be reached for comment at the time of filing this report.