Governor Umaru Dikko Radda of Katsina State has disclosed the arrest of a village head who allegedly colluded with bandits to invade his community for monetary gain.
Governor Umaru Dikko Radda of Katsina State revealed this during an interview with Saturday Vanguard.
According to Governor Radda, the arrested village head, whose identity was not disclosed, purportedly accepted a sum of N700,000 from bandits to facilitate unhindered access to his community, resulting in the tragic loss of approximately 30 lives.
“We have arrested the village head in Guga village in Bakori local government of the state because of his involvement with the bandits.
“He was given N700,000 to allow bandits access into his village to kill over 30 people.
“The government deployed so many approaches but the notable ones are the kinetic and non-kinetic approaches and within, there are tangible approaches that have gone a long way in tackling security problems,” Gov. Radda said.
Governor Radda went on to lament the pervasive nature of complicity, highlighting how some individuals were willing to betray their neighbors or relatives for as little as N2,000, providing crucial information to bandits for nefarious purposes.
“I hold the security agencies in high esteem because they too are being killed daily in their pursuit to curb the insecurity in the state. But the point is, there is no set category of people who are not involved in this. What are we hiding here? Who was not arrested? Different categories of people were arrested on allegations of being involved in banditry, criminality, and many other vices even here in Katsina.
“I don’t know why people should be bothering themselves with why I said this other than the fact that some people want to fuel it. I still maintain that different categories of people, whether in government or anywhere, are involved. That is because there are several arrests and security reports we have. Even in prisons now, you will see the people we arrested from the security operatives, government officials, and traditional rulers.
“But the issue we should understand is that we have bad eggs, good people everywhere, but we can’t get away from the bad ones, and bad eggs are with us. Why should we be here and then you hear the information from the discussion we had after an hour or 30 minutes? Someone from those people who attended the meeting must have leaked the information.
“You must ask yourself who told them that. It is not rocket science but logic. We don’t want to tell the truth because we don’t want to get to the root of the problem. We are shielding ourselves from the consequences of wrongdoing. We must tell ourselves the truth. We have to examine ourselves. No organization doesn’t have bad eggs in it. We should deal with it so that we get out of it.
“But, when we keep hiding things that we don’t want to blackmail, it continues and there will be no time that it will end. So, it is high time we told ourselves the truth. When we do that, we will correct it. Somebody can challenge me for doing something wrong, and that may be the basis for my correction. Why should we be hiding things from ourselves? And that is one of the major problems affecting this country”, he said.
Governor Radda’s remarks underscore the complexity and deep-rooted nature of the security issues facing Katsina State and other regions plagued by banditry. His comments call for greater transparency, accountability, and collective effort in addressing these challenges to ensure the safety and well-being of all citizens.