Hundreds of women in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State on Thursday blocked Gusau-Kaduna Road to protest against persistent attacks by bandits despite security measures by the state government.

Gusau-Kaduna road is the busiest road as it links the state to several other states both in the North and the South.

The women, who were with their children and belongings, sat on the road and prevented movement for motorists and passersby on the road.

The protesters caused gridlock and hundreds of motorists were left stranded as they could neither move forward nor backward.

One of the women, who gave her name as Sadiya, told our correspondent that they decided to protest because bandits were always attacking and raping them and there had been no action taken to protect them.

Sadiya said, “We blocked the road in order to draw the attention of both the government and the security agents to come to our rescue.”

Another woman, Talatu Sani, said she left her village of Cediya because bandits used to go to the village to rape women and steal their food and animals.

“I join the protest because the authorities are not doing anything to protect us from this hopeless situation.”

A commercial driver, Musa Shehu said he was coming from Funtua to Gusau, lamenting that he spent more than four hours before the road was cleared by security agents.

Efforts were made to talk to the spokesperson of the state police command, Mohammed Shehu, without success as he didn’t pick up his calls. He had yet to reply to a text message sent to him on the protest.

Punch