A suspected Boko Haram kingpin and his brother have been killed in a gun dwell in Kaduna, North-West Nigeria.

Residents in the area said soldiers from Kano traced the house around 12:30 a.m. in Kinkinau GRA,Ungwan Muazu, and prevailed on the suspect whose name was given as Usman to come out.

“The soldiers kept shouting on his name to come out of his house. He resisted arrest and started shooting from the ceiling where he was hiding,” a source from the neighboring house told our reporter.

“The soldiers broke through the wall to gain entrance into the house and finally got the family of the culprits out of the house and engaged him into a gun battle that lasted for about three hours before he was finally gunned down with his brother whose name is yet to be ascertained.

“We are still in a state of surprise and deep shock of what we witnessed today,” another neigbour said.

The District Head of Ungwan Muazu and Cikasauron Zazzau, Alh Ahmed Aliyu Idris, who confirmed the incident after visiting the scene in the morning, called on residence and landlords to be security conscious and to ensure the identity of tenants in their houses.

The owner of the house said the culprit occupied the house on rent two months ago.

A visit to the house showed blood stains, bullet holes on ceilings and walls while walls by the side of the house were breached and most part of the PVC ceilings of the house were pulled down.

Bunch of broken GSM SIM cards, empty cylinders and many school certificates suspected to have been retrieved from new recruits by the kingpin were said to have been recovered by the police. The landlord and caretaker of the house was also said to have been invited for questioning by the police.

The position of the two wives and three children of the culprits was however sketchy, one version said the families came back the next morning and picked some few personal belongings before disappearing. Another version has it that the soldiers who came for the operation took them away.

A security sources said the soldiers had earlier arrested one of the suspect in Rigasa, a suburb in Kaduna and took him into custody at the 1 Mechanized Division, Nigerian Army Head Quarters, Kaduna before proceeding with an arrested member, named Jamilu whom was brought in from Kano and whose phone was used to communicate with the unsuspecting Kingpin, Usman.

Spokesperson of the army in Kaduna, Col Usman Abdullahi, when contacted said he would get back to our reporter as soon as he got details of the incident. He did not thereafter respond to calls and text messages sent to his number.

•Photo by Garba Ahmad shows the blood-stained wall of the Boko Haram kingpin after he was felled by soldiers.

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