By Sam Kayode
Shuari a suburb of Maiduguri has become a home of renegades known as “Malians” in-spite of deliberate efforts by Governor Babagana Zulum to free the state capital of their activities.
It has taken over the Malian notoriety from Bolori which used to be one of the most drug infested wards even competing with Mairi and Kaleri in jere which are the main suppliers of drugs and criminality into the nearby campus of University of Maiduguri.
These group of wild young drug brigands who have been tormenting shuari a suburb of maiduguri have increased their attacks on residents by flogging them on their trails to show how powerful they are.
Eye witnesses told this reporter that malians stormed shuari recently in a revenge spree and beat residents with sticks and all manner of crude weapons on behalf of one of their own.
“They said that they were beating people as a revenge for their member who was attacked by another rival gang in shuari one. I cannot tell you if the offending group was a cultic one but there are many of such groups controlled by these people in shuari, neighboring Bolori and even wulari.
” We sat down quietly in our shop last week and we saw them coming up here from Gudumbali down there by Bolori. They walked through the length and breath of shuari one and crushed people in the vicinity.
” Residents started running away from the shuari one bus stop on citing them and they chased after some of them flogging them as if we are in a lawless society without no law enforcement agency to stop wrong doing.
” I really don’t blame them, we do not have a single police or civil defense post nearby. The closest is in Ibrahim taiwo division at Baga road and that is not good enough. Many times they knife stab people here in shuari one and there is nobody around to catch them because there is no police post nearby.
“Most of the parents and elders in the area are aware of the hard drug consumption habit of their wards but they do nothing to stop them. As a matter of fact, there are parents who are civilian jtf members and one of them is the father of a known drug dealer at shuari one bus stop.
“Sadly each time the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (ndlea) or the civil Defence are coming to raid the place of malians and criminal elements, he gives his son advanced information to go and hide so he is not caught.
On why the malian movement is holding sway in the shuari one to four axis in maiduguri, he said that the young people involved in it do so because of the need for social belonging and to boast self esteem which overdose of drugs hardly give to them.
“They need to belong to the cultist groups which they believe will give them self confidence. Afterwards their parents belong to one” mai jelisa” or the other which is a social group for interaction. If you are an adult Shua or Kanuri and you don’t belong to such a group, you are seen as unsociable.
