The assault late on Tuesday targeted Woro village in Kwara State and came shortly after the military carried out operations in the area against what it described as “terrorist elements,” News.Az reports, citing AFP.
Gunmen set shops and the home of a traditional ruler on fire, forcing wounded residents to flee into nearby bushes, Babaomo Ayodeji, Kwara State secretary of the Red Cross, told AFP.
“Reports said that the death toll now stands at 162, as the search for more bodies continues,” Ayodeji said.
Police confirmed the attack but did not provide an official casualty figure.
Earlier, local lawmaker Sa’idu Baba Ahmed reported an initial death toll of between 35 and 40 people, warning that more bodies would likely be found because many of the wounded had escaped into the bush. Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq later put the number of dead at 75.
Conflicting casualty figures are common after attacks in remote rural areas.
No group has claimed responsibility for the assault. The state government blamed “terrorist cells,” while Tinubu attributed the violence to Boko Haram jihadists.
Several parts of Nigeria continue to suffer from violence linked to armed gangs that loot villages and carry out kidnappings for ransom, intercommunal clashes in central states, and jihadist insurgencies in the north.
Announcing the deployment of a battalion to secure the area, Tinubu condemned what he described as a “beastly attack” against villagers who had rejected the jihadists’ ideology.
“President Tinubu expressed rage that the attackers killed the community members who rejected their obnoxious attempt at indoctrination,” a statement from the presidency said.
According to lawmaker Ahmed, the gunmen entered Woro at around 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Tuesday and set “shops and the king’s palace ablaze.”
In a separate incident the same day in northern Katsina State, bandits were suspected of killing 23 civilians in retaliation for air force operations that reportedly killed 27 “militants,” according to a security report prepared for the United Nations.
