Politicians Sabotaging Dialogue With Bandits – Governor Matawalle
Governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle, has accused some unnamed politician in the state of sabotaging his efforts to end kidnapping in the state through dialogue with bandits.
Mr Matawalle levelled the allegation in a statewide broadcast on Wednesday on the security situation in the state.
The state has come under increasing bandits’ attacks especially in Bakura, Maradun, Maru, Tsafe and Shinkafi local government areas.
In Bakura, bandits twice entered the Zamfara College of Agriculture and Animal Sciences and kidnapped the provost and 15 students.
But the governor said his “dialogue and reconciliation policy” had helped in stopping bandits activities for sometime.
“The state witnessed about nine months of peace; hundreds of kidnapped people were unconditionally released by their captives (captors); hundreds of assorted arms and ammunition were surrendered by both Yan Sakai and bandits…”
He said some “disgruntled politicians”, however, saw his “progress as a threat to their political survival and began making disaparraging efforts to undermine our achievements…”
Mr Matawalle also faulted some governors in the North-west region for not engaging in peace talks with the bandits, which he said contributed in aggravating the attacks.
He said the reluctance by affected states to engage the bandits in dialogue provoked them to continue attacking innocent people.
He did not mention names.
