- Zamfara launches 2,600 community guards
Governors of the North West geopolitical zone have resolved to reject any peace deal with bandits.
This is just as the Zamfara State government on Wednesday inaugurated a 2,600-member quasi-security organisation called Community Protection Guards (CPGs) to help in rolling back the threat coming from bandits in the State.
Meanwhile, a former Minister of Defence and also Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau (rtd), said Nigeria was too large for only the Armed Forces and the Nigerian Police Force to secure.
General Gusau, who spoke at the Community Protection Guards launch, stated that “with an estimated population of 223.8 million, and a diverse terrain covering 923,768 square kilometres, Nigeria is a difficult country to secure,” adding that a unitary Police cannot secure a federation of 36 States and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Calling for the deployment of technology and collaboration with community guards, Gusau, a renowned military intelligence officer, said: “Therefore, expecting a single Police force to patrol and control such a large and complex nation effectively is a very tall order indeed. Time has come for us to rethink this strategy in the best interest of our country. Currently, innocent lives are lost daily as terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, organised crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and cultism become the order of the day in theatres across Nigeria.”
Saying that the perpetrators now act with impunity, the former Defence Minister regretted that additional deployment of the military to hotspots had not achieved the desired results.
Gusau, also a former National Security Adviser (NSA), praised the initiative by Zamfara State government in setting up the CPGs to complement the activities of the regular Police force, saying it is the right way to go.
He canvassed for intelligence gathering and disseminating effectively among all security agencies and outfits on a regular basis, stating that they are critical to successful actions against criminal activities.
General Gusay however noted that local knowledge is invaluable, adding that effective security is anchored on fully understanding the environment before deploying appropriate tools that involve the buy-in of all critical stakeholders.
“We must understand that security is a community effort and the responsibility of all; not only the Police or Armed Forces,” he stated, while calling for greater inter-agency collaboration and cooperation between government and the private sector.
chairman of the North West Governors’ Forum and Governor of Katsina State, Umar Dikko Radda, who also spoke at the graduation and official commissioning of CPG, in Gusau, the Zamfara State capital, announced that there would be no more with terrorists, bandits or outlaws and that the Governors had resolved to work together as a force to clear the region of all acts of banditry.
According to him: “We have resolved to work together as a team, in spite of the political differences, to save our people from the menace of insecurity.”
Governor Radda added that in the fight against banditry and terror, there is no All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) but North West region only, stressing that the the well-being and progress of the region was the main concern of the present leadership in the region.
The North West region is most affected by bandits levy taxes, killing and kidnapping of residents for ransom. In the past, a few Governors had negotiated peace deals with known bandit leaders in which a lot of money was believed to have been given to the outlaws to give up their criminal activities, but they soon returned to their old habits, using the funds to buy more arms.
Governor Radda maintained that with the launch of the Community Protection Guards in Katsina and Zamfara, the remaining States of Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano and Kaduna would follow suit.
On his part, Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal expressed appreciation for the successful screening and training of the community protection guards, saying they were recruited to address the problem of insecurity in the state.
He reiterated the commitment of his administration to improve infrastructure and end the menace of banditry in the state.
Dauda Lawal said his administration had embarked on the arduous task with a commitment to gradual reforms across all sectors of the State’s economy to instill sanity and accelerate development.
“While we make these efforts, the lofty goals we set out to achieve will remain a mirage as long as the formidable challenge of insecurity remains unaddressed. This informed our decision to, among other things, establish the Community Protection Guards, known as Askarawa. The Steering Committee for establishing the Community Protection Guards traversed the 14 Local Government Areas and screened eligible volunteers for enrolment into the outfit.”
