Vigilantes can’t confront bandits in Kaduna, says Gov Sani

Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani, has said vigilantes lacked the firepower to confront bandits who bear sophisticated weapons because they were poorly equipped.

The governor also said he speaks with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu twice daily over the security situation in the state.

Recall that Kaduna is one of the hotbeds of banditry and kidnapping where 287 school children were recently abducted and are yet to be released by their captors.

Although the state government had set up local vigilantes as part of measures to tame the raging insecurity sweeping across Kaduna and in some parts of the country, Governor Sani, who spoke in an interview on Channels Television’s ”Today Politics” programme on Monday night, attributed failure of the vigilantes to stop the bandits to the fact that they were ill-equipped.

He said: “Vigilance service cannot hold anything more than pump actions and these bandits come around with AK-47s and even more sophisticated weapons. That is where we are.

“In any case, that is the reason some of us are insisting that we need to create state police. When you create state police, you will give the state police the legal authority, through our constitution, to hold firearms, including AK-47s. Then those communities can defend themselves.

“But until this moment, the vigilance service can only work with the military. They can only work with the police and all the relevant security agencies to help them with intelligence.”

I call Tinubu twice daily over insecurity — Uba Sani

Speaking further, Governor Sani said he was always in touch with President Bola Tinubu on a daily basis over the tense security situation in the state.

While noting that President Tinubu and the service chiefs were committed to ending insecurity in Nigeria, Sani said: “Mr President is worried and concerned. I speak to Mr President twice daily on this issue and he showed a lot of concern.

“He is committed and I have a tremendous belief in what the president is doing. I also believe in the armed forces. I have no doubt in my mind that we will overcome this problem.

“We had a meeting with the NSA and the service chiefs and everyone of them is concerned. Mr President is worried, too. He calls me twice daily, sometimes four times a day, to ask me about the situation in my state.

“I have no doubt in my mind that Mr. President, under his able leadership, will address this problem. It is a matter of time.”

He said also that his government had come up with an intervention to help the citizens of the state by empowering businesses and households.

Although the 287 school children kidnapped in Kajuru Local Government Area of the state last week are yet to be freed, the army, however, yesterday rescued 16 people earlier kidnapped in the same area two weeks ago.