At least eight police officers have been killed and five others kidnapped after gunmen ambushed a police vehicle in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara State while the officers were providing security during a senate primary election.
The attack occurred on Monday along a rural highway near Gidan Kano, on the road linking Zamfara and neighbouring Sokoto State.
According to local resident Ibrahim Umar, the attackers, suspected to be armed bandits, opened fire on a bus carrying the officers before fleeing with several others into the bush.
“They were ambushed by bandits. The bandits opened fire on the bus the police were in and killed eight of them and took the rest into the bush,” Umar told AFP.
Adamu Kantu Gora, secretary of Zamfara’s Maradun Local Government Council, confirmed the death toll, revealing that five additional officers had been kidnapped while three others sustained injuries and were rushed to hospital.
Zamfara State Police spokesperson Yazid Abubakar said the officers had been deployed from neighbouring Sokoto State to provide security during the election exercise.
The officers were guarding the Zamfara North senatorial district primary organised by President Bola Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress (APC) to select its candidate ahead of the country’s January 2027 general elections.
The primary had been rescheduled after a court nullified an earlier exercise over alleged irregularities.
The latest attack highlights growing insecurity in northwestern and central Nigeria, where armed gangs, commonly known as bandits, have intensified attacks on rural communities, killing residents and abducting people for ransom.
According to the US-based conflict monitoring organisation ACLED, violence in Nigeria has worsened since 2024, driven largely by banditry and jihadist attacks.
Nigeria is also grappling with a 17-year jihadist insurgency, deadly farmer-herder clashes over land and a separatist conflict in the country’s southeast.
