Dikko Radda, governor of Katsina, says his administration
will support communities to defend themselves against gunmen.
The governor spoke on Friday at a town hall meeting with the
theme, ‘Public Engagement: 2025 Citizens’ Budget Participation Process’, in
Daura.
“We have come up with an initiative that for any community
ready to defend itself, we will give them necessary support and training to engage
criminals before the arrival of the security agents,” NAN quoted Radda as
saying.
“I went to a village, Tsamiyar-jino, where it took me two
hours inside a jeep before I reached the village from the main road. So, if
bandits attack such areas, from the time you inform the security, it will take
them over two hours before they can respond to the distress call. By then,
whatever is going to happen will have happened. They will have killed people
and kidnapped others.
“I have said several
times that the security agents cannot do this work alone. We don’t even have
enough of them. I am surprised at the way we are dying in such a humiliating
manner. We were told that anyone who died in defence of his family would enter paradise.
“You see five criminals attacking a community of 2,000 to
3,000 people, rape daughters, women and abducting others without any
confrontation from the people of that community. If there are 100 youths in the
community who confront them, they will not shoot more than three times without
being captured with bare hands.
“Paying ransom doesn’t even prevent a hostage from being
killed by abductors. Sometimes they collect the money and kill the victim.”
The governor said even community leaders connive with
bandits to attack communities for monetary gains.
“There was a representative of the village head who
collected N700,000 from bandits and allowed them to enter his area and killed
about 30 people,” the governor said.
“There were women arrested, and a teacher serving as their
informant, in fact, almost all the segments of people are involved in this
act.”
Radda said his government has created a community security
watch corps to protect residents.
“We trained them and
attached them with the police and the army to work in synergy after providing
them rifles, bulletproof vests, umbrellas, three sets of uniforms and shoes,
among others,” he added.
The governor said the security operatives were equipped with
700 motorcycles, 65 Hilux cars and 10 armoured personnel carriers (APC).
“We pay N3 million for fuelling and maintenance of those
vehicles to front-line local governments, and N1.5 million for vulnerable local
governments and N750,000 for the remaining LGAs,” he said.
“We also purchased surveillance gadgets that you cannot find
anywhere in the country. Our own is 5G and not the normal 3G.”
This is not the first time the governor has asked residents
to defend themselves against bandits.
In February, Radda asked residents to “organise themselves
in order to protect their communities from attacks by criminals”.
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