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Bandits will not take over my state, Gov Lawal vows
Governor Lawal also used the occasion to appeal to politicians in the state to stop playing politics with security. While urging people in the state to continue to pray for peace to return, the governor also appealed to the former governors in the state to join hands with his administration so as to rescue the state which he said had been groping in the dark due to security challenges.
Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State said on Friday that he maintained his position of non-negotiation with bandits, vowing to fight them until they surrender.
Governor Lawal made the vow while reacting to a suggestion by a prominent Scholar, Sheik Umar Kanoma in his sermon during the weekly Wa’azi organized by the state Ministry of Religious Affairs, that the state government should negotiate with the bandits to end banditry in the state.
The Governor said it would be a waste of time to negotiate with a set of people who neither value human lives nor keep their promise. He said if the bandits were interested in negotiation, they should come out of the forest and surrender with all their weapons.
His words: “How can you reconcile with somebody who goes out to kill or kidnap people for the sake of money, and how do you think those people can be trusted to renounce banditry? If they want reconciliation, let them surrender their weapons and come out for negotiation. Without that, I still maintain my earlier promise of non-negotiation with them”
“Previous administrations in the state have conducted reconciliation process with bandits on so many occasions but did that process work? “I repeat it, there is no reconciliation with somebody who does not value human lives, and if they have not changed from their dirty acts, I will pursue them and fight them until they give up”.
Governor Lawal also used the occasion to appeal to politicians in the state to stop playing politics with security. While urging people in the state to continue to pray for peace to return, the governor also appealed to the former governors in the state to join hands with his administration so as to rescue the state which he said had been groping in the dark due to security challenges.
“I want to make a passionate appeal to all the former governors of the state to please come out and join hands with my administration so that we can rescue our state which has been groping in the dark due to security challenges”, he said
