Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state has said that he does not see banditry ending soon in his state due to the activities of traitors.
This is even as the governor promised to get the collaborators out because “we know the people who are pressuring them to do it.”
background
Zamfara state has seen new attacks in recent weeks, most notably with the recent killing of more than 200 people in the Anka and Bukkuyum local government areas of the state.
The killings drew condemnation from both President Muhammadu Buhari and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
Bandits have been active for more than a decade in the northwestern region of Nigeria, where banditry is the code word for organized crimes such as kidnapping, cattle rustling, murder, rape, kidnapping and even robbery. armed hand
What started as a communal rivalry between farmers and herders over land use turned into a deadly act of terrorism with bandits shooting down an air force plane and kidnapping over 1,000 in 2021 alone.
According to an American Security Project Report (2021), 200,000 people fled their communities last year, of which 77,000 left the country in search of safer places.
The attacks have continued despite the efforts of security agents and members of the self-defense groups to control the bandits.
The outlaws have been killing, kidnapping, looting, burning shops, houses and vehicles, raping women and forcing people to flee their ancestral villages.
In addition to the murder, kidnapping and displacement of innocent residents, farmers have also been forced to stay away from their farms with those who braved the odds to work on their farms losing their produce to bandits.
Matawalle speaks
Speaking to House reporters Monday afternoon after meeting with President Muhammadu BuhariMatawalle said some people have been making things difficult for the administration, a reason he said would make the fight against banditry very difficult to end soon.
“So, you see, with the kind of people we have in Zamfara state, I don’t think this banditry thing will end very soon. Because some people are already behind this. Some people are using it. And all they need is to at least show Nigerians that both the federal and Zamfara state governments do not take the issue of insecurity seriously, even though some of them are involved in the crisis of insecurity. But we are doing our best,” he said.
Speaking more about the collaborators of the bandits, the governor said that residents of some communities were being “pressured” to spread lies against him.
He criticized a claim on Sunday by Nahuche protesters in the Bungudu local government area that they paid N200,000,000 to ransom their people.
He said, “It’s not true. As I said, they have collaborators, and we are working to catch those collaborators and the law will take its course. Ok, all the people of Nahuche to say that they have given N200 million, how can you believe that? Its president (of the correspondents of the House of Representatives) is from the state of Zamfara. He is from the Chafe local government area. He can testify to that.
“So we know that people are only saying that to blackmail the government and security agencies. But it is not true. We know the people who are pressuring them to do so, and we are going to expel them and I assure you that they will be rescued and treated accordingly.”
While he reiterated that the state and federal governments would continue to work hard to address the situation, Matawalle said that the people of the state would begin to see a change in the security situation after his conversation with the president.
“You know that I do initiate some actions to take. And if I initiate some actions, I inform the president, and I have been receiving support from him. So, now, I started another option, which I informed you that you know, some security issues are not something that someone should be talking about on the television screen or in the pages of the newspapers.
“But I assure the people of Zamfara state that you will see changes very soon and the president is committed to reducing this problem of insecurity to the minimum level and I assure the people that we have everything we need to fight against these people, and he has motivated me and when we come back on Wednesday people will see changes between now and Wednesday because I know what we discussed and I know what will happen within this period.
“So, my people would be happy with the action that the federal government is going to take on the issue of insecurity very soon, inshallah.”