Zamfara winning war against banditry, arrests hundreds of bandit informers -SA to Gov Matawalle

The Special Adviser of Governor  Bello Matawalle, of Zamfara State, Mallam Zailani Bappa has disclosed  the arrest of hundreds of bandit informers across the state after the telecom outage in the State by vigilante groups and security forces.

The Special Adviser to the Governor said its those arrested state-wide that is enabling the government in the battle against insurgency in recent times.
According to him, although the people of the state are going through some hardship as a result of the hardship occasioned by the development but that it was better for them to be alive rather than  have bandits lay siege on their very existence.

Mallam Bappa who revealed this in a chat in Lagos recently said that it was the success of the initial telecom outage that lead the government to extend the approach as banditry and insurgency had made life brutish in Zamfara.

It should be recalled that  the Zamfara government shut down all telecommunications networks in the state after the failure of various efforts to check banditry; including  the suspension of weekly markets and other drastic measures in the adjoining troubled North-west and North central states.

Following that action, bandits  reportedly intensified attacks in Zamfara and Katsina, looting food stuff to stock up while the measures remained in place.

Mr. Matawalle had  told DW Hausa Service back in September that the Chief of Army Staff, Farouk Yahaya, was in Zamfara and led troops into the forests to engage the bandits.

As the Governor said at that time “The bandits are releasing their captives, they are abandoning their motorcycles after running out of fuel. Many of the bandits have been killed by the security forces and the security personnel will sustain the offensive against them until we wipe them out from Zamfara.”

The governor added that the security forces in collaboration with local vigilantes were taking the fight into the bandits’ enclaves as directed by the army chief, Mr Yahaya.

The security agents had been previously accused of ignoring distress calls from communities under attacks by armed bandits. It should be noted that the Governor had said recently that it was the battle against bandits that made him join All Peoples Congress (APC) from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from which he emerged as a the state helmsman.