It is now six months plus since Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Maj. Gen. Chris Musa assured Nigerians that notorious bandit kingpin, Bello Turji would either be captured or eliminated by the Nigerian military.
Gen. Musa who made the vow during a press conference in Abuja on September 10, 2024, had boasted that Turji’s reign of terror where he held Zamfara and Sokoto States to ransom, would be brought to an end in no time.
Musa who described the bandit leader who is now the most wanted terrorist in Nigeria, as a deranged fellow who would soon meet his waterloo, had vowed that he would soon be apprehended and his reign of terror brought to an end.
“On the issue of Turji, like I said, he is just a deranged individual who feels power, but I can bet you that it is just a matter of time,” Musa had said while addressing a press conference.
“We are going to get him and I can assure you within the shortest possible time, we are going to address that issue.”
But despite that assurance and subsequent other promises from the military hierarchy, Turji has remained elusive, sparking speculations that he may either be invincible or have informants within the security circle who always tip him off whenever they close in on him.
One of such cases was a recent invasion of one of his hideouts where food storage facilities were destroyed. In the well coordinated invasion, Turji’s son was killed along with some of his key lieutenants, but how he managed to escape has remained a mystery.
In the months following the boast of eliminating Turji by CDS Musa, the bandit leader had gone on rampage and had become bolder in carrying out deadly attacks on the communities under his control, kidnapping and collecting ransom at will and killing his victims without any iota of remorse.
At one time, Turji added another dimension to his reign of terror as he recorded his acts on video and uploading them to taunt the security agencies.
In one of such videos, Turji, dressed in full military fatigue and brandishing sophisticated weapons had boldly called out the Army Chief by name and charged him to get all the weapons in the military arsenal and come after him.
In another video, Turji showed some of his kidnapped victims and insisted that a N50 million ransom he placed for their release must be paid before he would release them.
In yet another video, the bandit kingpin taunted the Nigerian government and security operatives, asking them when the chase for him would commence. He then asked rhetorically whether they were scared of him.
When one of his close ally and mentor, Bako Wurgi, was arrested by Nigerian troops, Turji released another video where he issued threats of violence including killing of hostages if Wurgi was not released immediately.
And as was to be expected, he duly carried out his threats when he laid siege to some communities in Sokoto and kidnapped over 50 residents while an unspecified number of people were also killed.
Though not much has been heard of Turji in recent weeks, the fact still remains that the the notorious terrorist is still roaming free and could strike at any moment without warning.
Several security reports have stated that Turji may have slipped out of the country and is currently preparing his gang on a serious attack but the big question is if the Nigerian military is ready to counter him if and when he does.
Will Maj. Gen. Musa ever fulfill his promise of taking out the dangerous Bello Turji? Or was the promise to capture him merely a case of macho talk without the necessary wherewithal to match it?
Many Nigerians wonder how a criminal could best the country’s military forces within its borders even often the head of the country’s armed forces vowed to bring him down.
The question now is: Is Maj Gen Musa capable enough to capture Bello Turji?
Nigerian await the answer.
