#TrackNigeria: Zamfara State has been under pressure from bandits for more than 10 years now, the Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Abdullahi Shinkafi has said.
Shinkafi stated this at the opening ceremony of a two-day federal and states security administrators’ meeting in Gusau on Thursday.
He said that the state began to encounter security concerns in 2009 and since then, “more than 4,000 lives have been lost in the state, more than 9,000 persons injured, just as more than 10,000 houses, shops, and silos have been destroyed.
“Over 500 villages and towns have been destroyed, 10,000 persons displaced, 8,000 women widowed, and 16,000 children orphaned by the ugly trend.
“The situation is sending away investors from Zamfara State, which used to be a major centre of commercial activities .
“In the past seven years of this administration, the state constructed over N2,000 kilometres of road, thousands of classrooms, and 716 health facilities, but most of them cannot be used due to insecurity.
“It is unfortunate that there are more than 10,000 bandits across the eight major bandit camps in the state.
“In spite of the increase in the number of security personnel in the state, the problem still persists.
“This situation is more serious than the way we thought it was.
“The security issue is the duty of all of us; communities should support security agencies with useful information,” he added.
Earlier, Dr Amina Shamaki, the Federal Permanent Secretary Special Assignments under the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, said that the meeting was organised as part of efforts by the government to tackle insecurity in the country.
Shamaki said that all security administrators at the federal and states government levels would consider extensively how the security challenges in the country could be tackled.
She appealed for more support and cooperation from all stakeholders in the state to end the security challenges bedevilling the state. (NAN)
