Nigerian Army refutes report of gun duel between soldiers, miners over N70 million gold nuggets in Katsina

The Nigerian Army has denied an online publication, alleging that two soldiers and seven illegal miners were killed during a gun duel, arising from a disagreement over gold nuggets in Magama village in Jibia Local Government Area of Katsina State.

According to the publication, the incident occurred when the soldiers turned down an initially agreed offer of 500,000 naira per pit from the miners, but afterwards, turned around to demand more money on discovering the large quantum of gold nuggets found by the illegal miners in one of the pits.

In a statement, Director Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu said the story was baseless, unfounded, untrue and a mere figment of the writer’s imagination, aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the Nigerian Army, as no Nigerian soldier was killed, nor involved in any skirmish with illegal miners in Magama village on 5th January 2022.

He said contrary to the insinuations peddled by the online medium, Nigerian Army troops deployed in the North West were committed and engrossed in the fight against banditry and other criminalities bedeviling that region.

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Accordin to him, “They are not permitted to participate in any form of mining, whether legitimate or illegitimate.”

Nwachukwu said aside orchestrating disrepute, fake news as this, had the potential to dampen the morale of the fighting troops, erode their fighting will and undermine the entire operations.

“This is certainly not what the troops require at this critical time,” he said.

He urged the public to disregard the fake news as it was concocted to denigrate Nigerian Army troops, who were working tirelessly to ensure sanity and peace return to the North west region.

Nwachukwu assure the public of the unrelenting commitment of the troops to decisively tackle the banditry menace in the North West.