 Shadongu kao mwaamu kwaumuniti Shibu, Sifenguementa ar�iningi umagata kumingshengi Ubaru Hmab Talking Na kwaumuniti Sifenguementsa, A PRU, Usmayan Ahmed Sia za hiwa kwaumuniti Yamaaji Maha Chimau Hathiru, Bungu Du, Hazana, Tehole was kidnapped along the Kaduna Abuja Highway in September. He spent 32 days in captivity before he was released. The Bungudu Emir is considered a higher rank than the traditional ruler of Ogeda. Attacks by terror groups and communities in Zamfara have become rampant with hundreds of people killed or kidnapped in 2021. Apart from Zamfara, other North West states that witness similar attacks are sokoto katsina and Kaduna. The attacks have continued despite the heavy deployment of security operatives to the area. According to reports, the traditional ruler Umarubawan Allah has since been buried according to Islamic rites. Well joining us live to discuss this is the Commissioner for Information Zamfara State Ibrahim Dosara. Also joining us with him is the security expert Dr. Kabir Adamu. Dr. Kabir Adamu is also the MD of Beacon Consultant Limited, a security outfit. Gentleman you're welcome to plus news now. Thank you Maureen. Peace and greetings. I wish you the same. Very sad thing happening in your state. Okay, I'm not from Zamfara State. In a neighbouring, I come from a neighbouring state, but yet very sad at the Nigerian. I feel really really bad about this development. So many things are happening in Zamfara, so many killings and kidnappings. How would you, what would you attribute this to? It's a failure of governance and frankly we can go around this topic. But that's the issue. There is a constitutional mandate section 14 subsection 2 of the constitution mandates the government to protect the lives and property of every citizen and where there is a failure of that. I mean the responsibility lies dwelling on government and its government is a spectrum. It includes the federal, it includes the states and to an extent the local government. They have one primary responsibility which is to protect us and in this instance we are seeing the failure repeatedly. The issue in Zamfara started as far back as 2012 and we're in 2021, which is how the year is about to end. And frankly we haven't seen any major reduction in terms of the frequency of the fatality as well as the trend models. We are speaking about bandits that are raiding villages and that are killing people. Frankly with an impunity that I have not seen. Would you describe it as a case of a neglected crisis, Zamfara state? A case of a neglected crisis? I wouldn't really call it neglected in the sense that government has attempted to address the issue in particular this current government when it came in, it set up a committee. The committee submitted a report with fire reaching recommendation. I wish the commission was available to tell us Just hold your thought there. I think we've got him back online. Hello Mr. Commissioner, are you online now? Yes, I'm on the line. Good evening to you. Good evening to you and welcome to the news. Thank you so much. The security expert was just saying that he wished you were available to answer this question which I threw at him. Is Zamfara case, the situation in Zamfara case of a neglected crisis because it's been going on for some time. Can you come again? The situation, the insecurity in Zamfara state, so many people killed, so many people kidnapped and as he has said, a security expert that he is that not much has been done and I asked him, is it a case of neglected crisis? Do you share that? No, no, no, no. You know the issue of insecurity is inherited by this administration. And the issue of insecurity started back to 2011 where there was crisis between farmers and herders which falls into the crisis between Vigilantegru and Fulangif. And that degenerated also to the current situation. The government of the day when it came, it tried to make sure that there was reconciliation between the Polani and the answer case who are fighting each other. And at the initial stage the government succeeded. Zamfara stands over a year with total peace without anybody being kidnapped, anybody being killed or anybody being intimidated by the pandemic. But because of the conflict entrepreneurs, politicians and so forth tried as much as possible to engineer the stepping back of the peace process between the answer case and the Polani and that is what did the relationship to the present situation. It was the reason why His Excellency gave the budget an ultimatum for them to re-embrace the peace process and then continue. But unfortunately some of them did not and that was why the governor decided to introduce what we have as Zamfara model of state of emergency. Shutting down the telecommunications network preventing sending of fuel on Jerikan preventing of black marketing preventing of rural areas where bandits used to come to buy fuel ban such sending of fuel in those areas as well as transportation of food and livestock and also closing down the market. And I can tell you that those measures have helped very seriously and very significantly. And then this and then this so what does that speak of this success you're talking about from those measures? Because a monarch has been killed along with other people. I'm just trying to show you how the government of the day has been trying its best to make sure that the issue of in-security is a parasitic circle. And I can tell you the result has been yielded as a result of the series of steps being taken by the government in dealing with the situation. All right. And from the reports we've gotten this very attack the bandits spent hours robbing from one house to another undisturbed. Is there any form of organized assistance of security being provided to the people in these communities? No, that that wasn't the case. Obviously when the report was heard there was a team a combined team of military officers including air force with aircraft bombarding the area dispatching the hoodlands and also rescuing ten people including one-year-old baby who was kidnapped by the bandits. Unfortunately the house of the monarch was set ablaze and the monarch was killed along with two other people. Have any arrests been made? What presently the police and the other security agencies are making fancy efforts to ensure that they arrest the hoodlands and I am speaking to you now a team of the military combined with those of the police and the civil defense are in the forest combing the whole area trying to make arrests of those people that perpetrated the act. Okay, all right please stay on the line while we go back to Dr. Kabiru. Kabiru are you still there? Yes I am Maureen. All right but in recent times the north has been in the news insecurity almost on a daily and several hashtags have sprung up such as hashtag north is bleeding hashtag secure the north What do we have in our hands? From your position as a security expert what do we have in our hands in the northern part of Nigeria? In simple terms we have non-state actors specifically armed groups that are challenging the supremacy of the state both at the federal and at the state level and they've successfully challenged that supremacy like I said that of Zanfarah started in as far back as 2012 and almost eight years down the road it's still ongoing if you look at the north east it's been ongoing for almost 12 years we have a counter-terrorism operation that has been implemented there with a full-fledged army division in fact two army divisions in the north east that are trying to contain and eradicate that terrorism so and all of this are the same issue non-state actors challenging the supremacy of the state now the human index development index in the north is one key element poverty on illiteracy socio-economic grievances Commissioner Ibrahim Dhozara mentioned the relationship between Fulani's hadas and you know farmers Fulani's and houses and how that has contributed to the situation in Zanfarah there are several other factors including mining and its contribution the proximity of the state to Nijar and how that is allowing the influx of weapons across the border drug addiction and several other factors in the north shell these are the kind of psychomsances that have allowed the growth of these non-state actors and their ability by one factor that I forgot to mention which is critical is the existence of so-called ungoverned spaces these are forested areas that are huge and that so far we haven't been able to dominate and deny that they are used by these non-state actors this is where the hibernate this is where when they abduct people they take them to and this is where they are able to operate between states so they are able to move from Zanfarah to Kazina to Sokoto to Kebi and to as far as Nijar through these ungoverned spaces so yeah but that's the knot for you unfortunately yeah would you say that the government is overwhelmed with the situation in the north because you just identified these areas where they hibernate to where they keep their victims and you also mentioned the paucity of the you know the borders which has been a major problem borders are very porous would you say that the government of the day is overwhelmed or the government not even before this government why have we not been able to secure our borders all these years all these decades why are we finding ourselves in this situation today where we are suffering because our borders are so porous enemies are bringing stuff in and out to hurt Nigerians I think it's an element of lack of accountability or you know it's at a very low level where I mean think about it we are discussing the model of a traditional ruler that is well respected I will bet you and you know I'm willing to put some money in it nobody is going to be punished for that no government official is going to be accountable for this debt and that is the issue so I wouldn't use the word overwhelmed rather I think it's because the level of accountability is really really low we are not seeing because of the nature of the northern states where you know the media is not very active the level of relationship between government and the people is at a very low level I mean if this was to happen in a southern state I bet you there will be at least some level of accountability because the media will put bigger pressure the civil society organizations will take actions and so before you know it government will be forced to take that nation but it happened in the north day in day out and nobody is being punished for it so maybe not overwhelmed but the commissioner that lack of accountability commissioner for information yes please lack of accountability is your government guilty of that you see the issue of armed bungee tree and the insecurity generally in north western Nigeria is quite different from that of the north eastern Nigeria they have different peculiarities but one thing I can tell you this present demonstration of them for a state has been pushing so hard to make sure that this issue of bungee tree is over recently with excellence in the governor Abelo Muhammad Matualem Maradun was in Nigeria Republic to ensure that this issue you are talking about of the porosity of the border is tackled and it was at the result that the most notorious bungee tree was attacked his weep on stores his food stalls and all other areas bungee tree were destroyed by military operations that took place about two weeks ago so and if you come here with the present administration and the previous one the there is significant improvement in terms of killing because before the hardly a day passes without getting 200 100 people killed within the week but today we have reduced it to merely nappin and in some places attacking and killing right so um I can tell you that the government of them for a state under the leadership of ex-lancy Belomohamed Matoa Lamaradun has been doing everything possible to make sure that the protection of life and property has been giving priority in them for a state okay just because time is not on our side this issue of securing the borders you said you went to Niger to you know we regards to that what was achieved we having better borders now better secured so of course very well there was synergy between Nigerian government and the Nigerian government in terms of securing the border and that is why the military is getting it easy now to operate within the border side officially the forest that link Nigeria and Nigeria Republic which is the hideout of the major notorious kinting and they are gone all right many of them are now moving towards the other places like the thousand part of the country every day now in Zampara state you see the bandits parting with their animals and their families moving out of the state to other areas which is a sign that the synergy between Nigerian and Nigerian government is working perfectly all right time would not allow us to continue with this discussion but on a final note Dr. Kabir what would you suggest what advice would you give to the government well I talked about accountability I think that's something that needs to be looked at closely unfortunately it's beyond the state government to do that it's actually the mandate of the federal government because let's remember that security is still on the exclusive list so there's very little that the state government can do in terms of security votes vote yeah so that they can also emulate Lagos state and set up what I would call now Zampara state security trust fund just like Lagos has the Lagos state security trust fund so that there is a transparent system for managing security where all of these ones including the security vote is used in a very functional manner then they also need to involve the people in within the security architecture the people that don't feel protected and I say this with all sense of responsibility Ibrahim Duzara is my friend the best example of this is the number of protests that we are seeing in Zampara just earlier in the week somewhere near HFE there was a protest by residents mainly because they felt they had been attacked and the kind of response they wanted was not adequate so the it's very important that whatever security arrangement involves the people so that the people feel they are protected and then lastly there must be a framework by the federal government with the support and involvement of the all the state governments not just Zampara but all the state government that are affected so kutukibi Kaduna Naija Kazina must be part of that arrangement where the same measures that Ibrahim Duzara mentioned including Mijar and to an extent Kemeruna in chat in a cross border arrangement as well as a coordinated action against all of these ongoing cases well thank you so much thank you so much Dr. Kabeer Adamu Dr. Kabeer Adamu is the MD of Bikin Consultant Limited of Security Alpha thank you for your time and we also thank you commissioner for information Zampara state Ibrahim Duzara thank you thank you so much and we wish you the best as you tackle this challenge in your state thank you so much even though you did not ask me my advice as well well I had to ask the security expert to advise you the government and I thought that would suffice aspect also need advice because like in Zampara state there is a kid shortage of Mampara in the area of security we need more military men we need more police we need more civil defense officers who work in Zampara state and again there is shortage of lack of very much financial support to the government so the federal government needs to get a lot of finance the state government ensure that all the needed facilities of the military are being supplied without play okay well I hope that the government I believe the government is listening and we hope to see an improvement in that regard thank you so much for your time again hello hope you 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