The Zamfara state government has alleged that the escalation of killings in the state might not be unconnected with the connivance of the military and police with suspected cattle rustlers.
THE GAZETTER learnt that Governor Abdulaziz Yari have been paying huge allowances to the military and police to secure the state but have become frustrated in their inability to guarantee safety for the people, a top aide of the governor who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue told this newspaper.
According to the aide, it remains a matter for thorough investigation that whenever there was going to be an attack on any community the military and police personnel are nowhere to be found.
“The governor is overwhelmed by the situation because he cannot reconcile the fact that he pays so much and provides almost every needs of the military and police yet they can’t secure the state. There is every reason to believe that there is connivance and if there is none, the security personnel should be where they should be at all times to wade off attacks,” the aide said.
In April, Governor Yari told journalists on media tour by the Nigeria Union of Journalists that it was matter of curiosity that the security personnel was never where they should be when attacks happen.
“There was a time in my state, the NIA passed information to the police that the bandits had amassed on a hill in a part of the state. The police commissioner came and showed me the letter, I immediately requested for more surveillance on the area, to which a total of 180 mobile policemen were sent to the area to forestall any attack, a few weeks later, the same commissioner of police came to me that he had an order from Abuja that the policemen should be withdrawn.
“I requested that they should rather be reduced and not withdrawn, only for me to attend the graduation of some of our medical students in Ukraine, and the Minister of State for Finance called me to ask if I heard what happened in my state, that 44 people were killed in the same area.
“Three months after, the said police commissioner was transferred out of my state and promoted to the rank of AIG, you can imagine. If I had the powers to fire that commissioner, he would have even resigned before I returned because if I meet him in the office, he would end up in jail. But because he knows I cannot fire him, he was still around when I returned,” Yari disclosed.
Only last week, the governor and the Minister of Interior, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd.), traded words over the insecurity in the state.
While Dambazau blamed poor governance, Yari accused the minister of poor intelligence.
“It is totally misleading and insulting to the intelligence of Nigerians to blame a state governor for the failure of security when he has no power and control over the deployment of troops to fight the bandits and protect lives,” Yari said.
He explained that the state government spent N600m monthly on the payment of allowances and logistics to federal security agencies, adding that it had so far spent over N15bn.
“We would also like to ask the minister why he didn’t blame poor governance for terrorists’ attacks in other northern states or why he thinks state governments should be blamed when they have no power to order troops deployment,” he added.
