Emir laments worsening insecurity in Katsina, says many traditional rulers have been abducted

The Chairman, Katsina State Traditional Council of Chiefs and Emir of Katsina, Dr. Abdulmumini Kabir Usman, has raised the alarm over what he described as multifaceted worsening security challenges besetting residents of the state.

The traditional ruler said the spate of insecurity in the state was at the moment deteriorating thereby degenerating the state of affairs with regards to the security of lives and property of the citizenry, particularly in farming communities across the state.

Also, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the state berated President Muhammadu Buhari and the legislative arm of government over their failure to investigate prevailing security challenges in the North-west despite huge resources spent to curb the scourge in the region.

Usman, who spoke in Hausa in a two minutes viral video, said some traditional rulers in the state had forfeited their salaries to enable the state government combat banditry in the state.

He added that the state had literally been overrun by terrorist, bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers, rapists, and other sundry armed criminal gangs who terrorise and kill, abduct and rape innocent citizens indiscriminately in the state.

He said: “You will see two or four persons (terrorists) on a bike with live ammunition out to kill anyone they could lay hands on, we all have to stand on our feets. It’s not as if we don’t have the money.

“We have the money and weapons to fight these people (terrorists). We have even forfeited our salaries so that they can fight insurgency but they don’t. Many emirs have been abducted.

“It has gotten to the extent that everywhere you go you will be in constant fear of not knowing what may happen. It was just yesterday that I came back from Kaduna, l had to be escorted front and back”.

He added that: “Imagine we and our country living in such fear because of those irresponsible drug addicts. We can tackle them, we have the money and weapons to fight them. Are we afraid of them?.

“We can’t fold our hands and be killed and have our wives abducted and raped in our presence, it is not fair, so this is my answer”.

Collaborating the emir’s frustration, the Chairman of the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the state, AbdulRahman Abdullahi, said with the escalating security challenges in the North-west, the monarch had spoken the minds of his subjects.

He said the federal and state governments need to devise more proactive and revolving security measures to tackle banditry and other heinous crimes orchestrated by the hoodlums than its current reactive actions.

“It is unfortunate that, despite huge spendings on security operations in the North-west, the rate of crime is increasing by the day and neither the president nor the legislature cares to probe why”, he added. (THISDAY)