Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
A commander of the Zamfara State Community Protection Guard has been killed by bandits while returning from his farm in the Goran Namaye area of Maradun Local Government Area. Lauwali Dan Tambai, a widely respected leader of the CPG, was ambushed on his way back from tending to his farmland on Sunday afternoon, according to multiple local sources who spoke to this reporter.
The killing of Dan Tambai is not an isolated incident. It is the latest in a grim pattern of targeted assassinations of community defence leaders who have dared to stand up against the bandits terrorising Nigeria’s North-West. Less than a week earlier, bandits had killed four people, including at least two members of the CPG, in the Kyara community in the same Maradun area. In a fierce gunfight that night, the CPG operatives had managed to repel a terrorist invasion of the community, but two of them paid the supreme price, the councillor representing Faru ward told Premium Times. The terrorists had earlier killed two other residents before the CPG operatives arrived. Bello Hussaini, the councillor, lamented that the security situation in the area has deteriorated in the last few months, with roads between Gora and Faru up to Kaya becoming "death traps".
Dan Tambai was not merely a local defence volunteer. He was an embodiment of the desperate attempt by the people of Zamfara to defend themselves in the absence of a reliable security presence. The Community Protection Guards were formally established by Governor Dauda Lawal in 2024, recruiting thousands of local volunteers to work alongside conventional security agencies. The guards have had notable successes, including the killing of notorious bandit leaders and allies of the kingpin Bello Turji. But they have also paid a terrible price. In July 2025, bandits killed the CPG commander for Talata Mafara LGA, Garba Dogo, and five of his men while they were working on their farms. In a single attack in the same month, nine people, including five CPG members, were killed. Even more tragically, some of these community guards have been killed not by bandits, but by Nigerian military airstrikes gone wrong, with over 20 members of the CPG, vigilantes and civilians killed in an accidental bombing in Tungar Kara village in Maradun LGA just weeks before Dan Tambai’s death.
The irony is as bitter as it is deadly. The people of Zamfara who are conscripted to defend their homes are being targeted simultaneously by the bandits and, sometimes, by the very military that is supposed to be protecting them.
Governor Dauda Lawal and the newly appointed Commissioner of Police in Zamfara, CP Ahmad Muhammad Bello, who assumed office just weeks ago, have not yet issued an official statement on the killing of the CPG commander. The Nigerian military, through Operation FANSAN YAMMA, has intensified its operations in the Maradun area, recently dislodging bandits from several hideouts. But the death of a commander returning from his own farm is a stark reminder that the bandits are not dislodged far enough. The state government has previously promised support to the families of slain CPG officers, but the promises have not stopped the bullets. For the family of Lauwali Dan Tambai, the state’s condolences, when they come, will not return their father and husband. Meanwhile, the road from Goran Namaye to the farm where Dan Tambai was ambushed remains what it has always been – a trail of blood in a region where the land is soaked in the blood of those who till it.
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