Backed by His Mother, Terrorist’s Recovery From Coma Sparks a New Wave of Horror in Zamfara

When a notorious terrorist faced a deadly attack from a rival armed group, his mother threatened a local community, for allegedly working with other terrorists to kill her son. Although residents reported the situation to the authorities, many are now fleeing their homes in fear of imminent attacks.

Tabo Dikko, the mother of criminal mastermind Kachalla Dansokkoto and his accomplice in Zamfara, North West Nigeria, has now joined her son in a renewed vow to unleash terror on residents of Yarmatankari village, whom she accused of attempting to kill him. 

Dansokkoto, a factional leader operating in the western areas of Yarsabaya’s forest, is one of the key members of the Jijji Dan’Auta’s terror camp, a leading group in the community. Before falling into the net of a rival terror group, he had ruled over communities, enslaving locals and extorting them. He had tasked some of the locals to look after his rustled cattle in the forest, but one of the cows got stuck, one day, in the mud.

Summoning the villagers, Dansokkoto ordered them to rescue the stranded cow or face his wrath.

“Kachalla Dansokkoto invaded our village alone with his gun on his shoulder, holding his cutlass in one arm and beating everyone he saw at the market square where he met us,” one resident told HumAngle; several other sources corroborated his claims. “He forced us to come down to the riverside to remove his sinking cow from the mud. Eleven of us tried for the whole day, but we couldn’t get the cow out. We were tired, and none of us had breakfast or lunch. It was getting evening time.”

Later, Dansokkoto started shooting at anyone in sight, chasing away those helping him to recover his stuck cow. “As a result, two amongst us died instantly. The rest of us had to run away for our lives,” Bello Mande, one of the narrowly escaped victims, recalled.

Coincidentally, a terrorist group was raiding, pulling up on 13 motorcycles for an attack in another village. 

“The group met us running but stopped by and asked why we were running from the direction they were heading. Equally, Dansokkoto met us, too. We disclosed to the group the matter that claimed the lives of two persons among us from Dansokkoto’s gunshots. Yet, Dansokkoto was all out to kill us,” Mande added.

The terrorist group had clashed with Dansokkoto in the past, having many scores to count. The group took advantage of the situation to “finish him now that he was alone”. Demonstrating the intent to snuff life out of him,  the terrorists stabbed Dansokkoto beyond recognition. They left him completely soaked in blood. Believing they had killed him, they hurriedly buried him in a shallow grave dug near a riverbank, locals said. 

“We all ran away in jubilation and saw this as a giant stride to protect us and the community. At this point, we thought the peace negotiation we had with various groups was helpful this time, but it was extremely costly,” Rabe Danummaru, another resident, told HumAngle. 

As the Yarmatankari community celebrated what they believed to be the end of Dansokkoto’s reign of terror, a new chapter of trouble was already unfolding. Unknown to the community, Dansokkoto’s burial was not successful; the terrorist had outsurvived the shallow grave dug for him, sneaking out of the pond and painfully walking out to the nearby village.

Upon his arrival, he met some villagers, who rushed him to the health centre in Yarsabaya. He was later transferred to the Wuya health facility by the community members who wanted to please him or appease his ego. Gripped with fear, the residents knew Dansokkoto’s recovery from coma could be deadly. 

When Tabo learned about the situation of her son, she rushed to the health facility to see for herself. “Why have the people of Yarmatankari done this to my last born? We gave them [residents of Yarmatankari] peace to live safely, visit their farms, attend their weekly markets, and freely go about their businesses. Is this all I would see as the price of their peace negotiation?” Tabo was quoted saying.

Mamman Goshe, a Yarmatankari resident, told HumAngle that they were there when Tabo arrived at the health facility, saying: “All the households of Yarmatankari will soon cry in a more painful manner than I did.” 

Residents described the mother of the terrorist as “a naughty and unforgivable woman. She has always been the reason for the agony we are passing through and all human tastes of terrorism we are experiencing”.

A community leader, who requested anonymity, revealed that a clan related to Dansokkoto had already taken up arms in revenge against innocent civilians from Yarmatankari. Fearing imminent violence, hundreds of households, women and children among them, fled to the Wuya ward centre, a nearby community, after Tabo’s ominous pronouncement.