Governor Matawalle has warned that strong facts indicated that the recurrence of bandits activities in the state is aided and abetted mostly by powerful indigenes of the state.
This was contained in a press statement released on Wednesday by Zailani Baffa, spokesman to Governor Matawalle.
“Some of these people are strong personalities whom the people respect. There are also among the generality of the people those who receive paltry sum of money to serve as informants to bandits”, Governor Matawalle revealed.
“That is why sometimes back, I swore with the Holy Quran and asked all those in my administration to do the same, distancing ourselves from the acts of banditry in the state. I also called on all opinion and political leaders in the state to do the same”.
“All those in my Government did swear except my former Deputy Governor, and none of the people mentioned did swear as well”, Matawalle observed. He said that swearing to the Holy Quran is the only way to distance oneself from the crime.
“However, we are not going to rest on our oars and watch the situation going from bad to worse. It is evident that in spite of what is happening in the state in terms of banditry today, we have brought the menace to a low level.”
He said that his administration is very concerned with the rate at which the criminals are lauching a come back, but assured that new tactics and strategy are being employed to deal with the trend. “It was some of these strategies in the past such as cutting off telecommunications lines that brought massive success on the bandits”, Governor Matawalle assured.
“They don’t want our children to go to school, they don’t want us to travel and earn a living, they don’t want us to have peace in our homes and in our towns and villages. They want people to revolt against the state and the Federal Government. But they will not succeed. The success is ours by the grace of God, the Almighty”.
“I want to further condole with families of those who lost their lives in the course of this wicked trend and plead with the families of those whose loved ones are abducted by these criminals to have confidence in our ability to secure them.”
” If in the past we have recued thousands unhurt, we shall still rescue those who are still in the hands of the bandits. Only three days ago, 39 victims were rescued from these criminals. We shall also continue to support our gallant operating officers to do more in terms of securing the state from these miscreants in our midst”, Matawalle added.
