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Talata Mafara, Zamfara State — September 13, 2026

Suspected bandits abducted six Islamic clerics in Zamfara State on Saturday as they travelled to a prayer gathering organized at the residence of Senator Abdul’aziz Abubakar Yari, Director-General of President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election campaign, in a fresh security breach that has renewed alarm over insecurity in the North-West and injected a sharp political undertone into the reaction.

According to the Zamfara State Police Command, the clerics were intercepted at around 11:30 a.m. at a location called Gidan Suleiman Bature in Gonar Sarkin Forest, roughly three kilometres from Damri village, along the Dakko–Damri feeder road in Bakura Local Government Area. Police spokesperson DSP Yazid Abubakar confirmed the abduction to Daily Trust, stating that the victims — all identified as imams — were travelling to honour Yari’s invitation to the gathering in Talata Mafara. “Yes, the incident occurred but the number of the Imams abducted were six and our men have intensified a rescue mission to ensure their safe return,” Abubakar said, adding that the Divisional Police Officer for Bakura, alongside the Violence Crime Response Unit and other security agencies, had mobilized to the scene.

Those named among the abducted include Imam Yahuza, First Jumma’at Imam in Dogon Madacci; Magawata Abdullahi, Second Jumma’at Imam in Dogon Madacci; Malam Shehu Dakko; Imam Bala Fagon; and Na’ibi Tasi’u of Tungar Nagudai. The clerics had travelled from communities in Bakura and Talata Mafara LGAs to attend the gathering, which organizers said was convened to pray for peace, national unity, and the success of President Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2027 election. Estimates of the total number of Islamic scholars who assembled at Yari’s residence for the event have varied across reports, ranging from roughly 1,000 to nearly 2,933 invited imams.

As of this writing, security agencies had not confirmed the whereabouts of the abducted clerics or reported any breakthrough in the rescue operation.

A politically charged reaction

The abduction has drawn sharp commentary, most notably from public commentator Garus Gololo, who mocked the clerics on social media, saying: “It shows that God didn’t accept the prayers of those imams. The hardship is too much in the country, yet you people are still going to endorse President Tinubu for a second term.” Gololo tied the incident directly to what he described as poor leadership and worsening economic hardship under the Tinubu administration, arguing the abduction raised uncomfortable questions about a gathering meant to pray for the president’s political success. The remarks have stirred debate over the propriety of religious leaders publicly endorsing political candidates amid Nigeria’s continuing insecurity and economic strain.

Set against the Muslim-Muslim ticket debate

The gathering, and clerical political mobilisation more broadly, sits within a wider and increasingly contentious debate over Tinubu’s same-faith (“Muslim-Muslim”) ticket with Vice President Kashim Shettima heading into 2027. Since the pair’s 2023 victory — the first for a same-faith ticket since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 — some prominent northern clerics have moved to shore up religious backing for a second term. In late August 2026, a reported communiqué from roughly 500 scholars at a Muslim Intellectual Forum meeting in Dutse, Jigawa State, claimed to endorse Tinubu’s re-election, though at least one attendee, Sheikh Abdurrahman Abubakar Azzamfari, publicly disputed that any such endorsement was discussed or agreed upon at the meeting. The opposition ADC’s Jigawa chapter separately warned against “the politicization of Islamic scholars and religious institutions,” arguing that individual clerics may make political choices but should not present them as representing the wider Muslim community.

The controversy sharpened further after Islamic cleric Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir, speaking at a Kano gathering attended by the governors of Kano and Jigawa States, defended the Muslim-Muslim ticket and described Christians as “infidels,” prompting the Northern Christian Association (NCA), led by Rev. Joseph John Hayab, to condemn the remarks as exposing long-standing complaints of religious marginalisation in the North — while noting that Tinubu and Shettima’s 2023 win drew support from Christian-majority states as well. Other voices, including clerics within the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria’s Kano chapter, have offered a more conciliatory reading, saying the administration’s record on appointments has eased some of the concerns Christians initially raised over the same-faith ticket.

The Yari-hosted prayer gathering, and Saturday’s abduction that followed it, land squarely within this fraught backdrop — underscoring both the scale of clerical political mobilisation ahead of 2027 and the security risks now attached to large public gatherings in Zamfara and the wider North-West.