Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara said the state government and security agencies are working hard to tackle the menace of banditry and other forms of criminality.
Speaking to State House correspondents after a meeting with the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the governor said all efforts are geared towards restoring peace to all the troubled parts of the state.“I am here to see the Chief of Staff because of the issue that is bedevilling Zamfara State. We have discussed intensively about security issues in Northern Nigeria, not just Zamfara state.
“We met in the National Security Adviser’s office with Northern Governors alongside the Inspector General of Police and other security agencies where we discussed seriously on the issues of insecurity and I was invited here by the Chief of Staff to the President to come and brief him on the issue of insecurity in my State, which I have done and we understand where we are going.
“The Zamfara State government and the security are doing their best to make sure that we curtail this issue of insecurity.”
Matawalle further disclosed that the State government is using the carrot and stick approach in handling security issues in the State, adding that repentant bandits are profiled and re-integrated into the society.
“You know in handling security issues; we have to adopt so many methods so we are using both stick and carrot so it is going concurrently. There are some repentant bandits that have already subscribed to the peace initiative, we are using them but some that refused to key into the dialogue, we are fighting them,” he said.
He said the ongoing military operations in the state is recording a lot of successes.“It is very successful, the security operatives are doing very well and they have been with us for about a month now and we are seeing the results, they have recorded a lot of successes in their operation and it has to continue,” he said.
He said the state government would continue to support security agencies to address the challenges, and assured citizens that the matter would soon be over.
