 The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadia Umar Farouk, has condemned the recent killings in Zamfara State. The minister made her position known following the invasion of five communities and killing of over 200 people in Anka and Bukyam local government areas of the state. Describing the banditry as horrific, Umar Farouk directed that relief materials be sent to internally displaced persons in the state to cushion the effects of the sudden displacement. Well joining us on the news now is a former director of the DSS, Mr Dennis Amakri. Hello Mr Dennis. Good evening. How are you today? I'm fine. Thank you. How are you? All right. We also have joining him a security consultant, Mr Tony Avoyakan. It's a pleasure. Good evening. How are you today? I'm good. How are you? Good thank God. Happy new year. I wish you the same but I'm just not happy. This is Zamfara situation. One attack too many. We keep repeating ourselves as we try to analyze the situation and not much seems to be changing. Well yes because apart from some other variables that the government has not considered. I think one area that we seem to be shying away from is the fact that Zamfara is a good leading region and we don't have to be pretentious about it. When you look at issues that have to do with things like terrorism financing, a knowing full well that the terrorists would definitely look for means of getting their own fund. I remember that I've said this several times. Zamfara is going to be a very hot bed. This is just in terms of the ice bed. If the government is not ready to take its headlong. As Zamfara is not like Pono, it's not going to be like Meduguri like Yubi or like Adamawa. Zamfara most likely may be hotter than as it is now because it's just you do it. You have to position with them. What is happening in the Niger Delta region as Zamfara is living in good and for such region the government has been very pretentious about that because the measure of security that is put in place in the Niger Delta especially because of the oil there. If you do a comparison to what is happening in the Niger Delta in Zamfara region, you ask yourself a simple question. Are we seeing that type of ridiculous security measure being put in place in Zamfara? It's not just the issue of government or terrorists now as they have been called terrorists. But look at it from the fact that those that are sponsoring and those that are behind these several attacks, where do they get their funds from? Who are their sponsors? Now until the government is right from that source, we most likely will have it more and more because in Zamfara there is money. All right. Yes. Yes, Mr. Farage. Let's take it over to Mr. Makhry. Mr. Makhry, a tip of the iceberg, he says. What we are seeing, the horror we are seeing, he says is a tip of the iceberg. What's your take on that? Definitely. I agree that it's a tip of the iceberg because when you look at it, there was almost a kind of veil that they nearly used on the whole of the country, where Belut or Jin, who is one of the major terrorist group leaders, came around to say that he wants to talk. He surrendered and he wants to talk and then of course he released a lot of people at that time. Now at that time we want that this guy might not be just coming out honestly because immediately he released those people. The next thing, the poor people were taking the game. So what is going, what is playing out? Just like Dr. Tony have said, there is resource fight over resources in that state that I think the whole country has not working up to because you know when you start comparing it to what we have with the Niger Delta and when you also look at it that it is not controlled as much as the one that is controlled in the Niger Delta is an open, the open bucket. And remember terrorist financing has to come from somewhere besides the people that are supplying their body or whatever, this is a very very credible way of taking the gold and selling it in the black market and then of course using it to finance their operations. Well now that they've been branded you know categorized as terrorists, a much awaited move, how do you see the game being changed now with this you know fight that we are having with this terrorist and then of course the supply of the Turkana jets that you know has been made available to Nigeria. How do you see things changing? Now you know there is a this a serious agreement that we have with the United States. In fact it was not even the that was a part of the agreement because the United States itself since 1976 had this arms exports control act of 1976 which stops anybody by any kind of armament from the United States to use it for civilian purposes. It is supposed to be used only on either terrorists or military. Now of course the government realizing this is not to court and then declared these people as terrorists. Fine, but now that they've been declared terrorists we have people like Belotaji coming out to say oh he wants to negotiate and all those are all russies because what is happening now is that the fight is done for as good as Khalid's, is good as Khalid because they are also going to show that it is not just declaring us terrorists. We are going to tell you that we are up to the task you know and we are going to see more of those attacks you know as they move out and as the military intensify the bombings of those guys. I don't see a very good future in Zafara. Okay Mr. Fayeta, let's move to Mr. Fayeta. Thank you so much Mr. Makribet. Just hold on a while let's move to Mr. Fayeta. Mr. Fayeta, how should them being categorized as terrorists change the game now? Well before now, let me speaking, a bandit is attended to through the normal criminal students of the country without the full instrumentality of force as it were. Now you see that there was restriction on the use of certain weaponry and their arms and ammunition because they are presumed to be more or less like commandeers that's why you call them bandits. But now the implication is this, those that were sympathetic to them, those that have come all out to support them and even give excuses on their behalf why they were doing those things and why God made you handle them with kid gloves, one will renaissance because if not, they will be presumed. Don't report them as participants for minutes, that is one. Then secondly too, the military too will not have the to go all out against them as terrorists, not as bandits now. Now another thing is that one type of weaponry that is used against them, there will no longer be the excuse that they are civilians because bandits are civilians. But when it comes to terrorists, terrorists is their different type of people that will be treated with the maximum amount of force as fast presumably within the rules of equipment and all the stuff like that. So you will not see that the way the military will attend to them, even when it comes to the arrest and prosecution, they are going to be prosecuted under the terrorism prevention act and no longer under the normal criminal act as it were. So you see that it's a big world of different entirely. Those that are connected to them will be charged or prosecuted as being, you know, supporters and sponsors of terrorism and not that of anti-terrorism. You will not see that it will be difficult for people like Sheldi Kumi and the like to go all out with those type of defense and those type of excuses. Why you should do this and why you should not do this for them and not those kind of things. Those funny stories you hear will definitely change because they are now terrorists and they are now people treated as such. Okay, well this sounds like a good place to take a pause from this discussion. We'll have to do this again some of the time. Hopefully it won't be because they invaded another community but to see that things have improved and then, you know, ask how we can even improve further. Thank you so much Mr. Tony Ofoyeta, security consultant and Mr. Dennis Amakere, former director of the DSS. Thank you so much for your time and insight. Thank you.