Katsina State Governor, Dikko Radda, on Thursday, said a majority of those fuelling insecurity in the state are embedded within local communities, not hidden in forests as widely assumed.
The governor made the revelation during a special prayer session to commemorate his second year in office.
He stressed that an average of 75 per cent of insecurity perpetrators operate from within communities as informants, while only 25 per cent reside in the forests.
Radda stated, “It is no longer just about the forests. We cannot pretend the insecurity problem is not in the forests anymore. A lot of it is right inside our communities. That is where your voices matter the most.”
He said many of these informants are responsible for enabling the activities of bandits by providing logistics, including drugs, fuel, medical supplies, and even delivering ransom money.
“Those in the forest are getting information from those in our communities, and they are the ones who are buying drugs and fuel for the bandits to ride to perpetrate their heinous crime, providing them with medication, and taking ransom sums from them in the forest,” Radda noted.
Emphasising communal responsibility in the fight against insecurity, he said, “I must say if we didn’t deal with these informants living amongst us, we would not succeed in this fight against insecurity. We should all be responsible in this course by exposing them.”
The governor urged religious leaders and parents to play active roles in fostering moral responsibility and curbing the menace of insecurity.
He cited a decline in parental involvement as a contributing factor.
He said, “Another thing that we may not make right in the banditry fight is the lack of parental upbringings. Parents are not taking responsibility for the upbringing of their children anymore.
“Cases of one man with many children, while in the event he cannot take care of them, surely, they must become a nuisance.”
Governor Radda called on religious leaders to intensify community sensitisation, particularly around parenting and the importance of exposing informants.
“Religious leaders, you must rise to create awareness on how we will curb the issues of lack of parents taking responsibility in the upbringing of their children, to let them also follow the law of the land and especially in exposing informants.”
He affirmed his administration’s commitment to tackling the issue, saying that the focus will shift from the forest to rooting out informants in communities.
“As for us in the government, we will leave no stone unturned if anyone is found aiding bandits in whatever form. We have given so much attention to those in the forest, and now, we will shift our focus more on those (informants) in our communities, which we believe will curtail insecurity.”
Chief of Staff to the governor, Abdulkadir Nasir, highlighted the efforts of over 140 experts in crafting the state’s development plan and revealed that the next phase of governance would focus more on human development than physical infrastructure.
“We have built the foundation. Now it is time for a continuation to empower people to stand on it,” Nasir added.
The Secretary to the State Government, Abdullahi Faskari, revealed that 75 per cent of the administration’s objectives have been achieved.
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