Kaduna: El-Rufai vows to sustain fight against insecurity as bandits killed 214 in three months

The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, on Wednesday, promised that his administration would sustain the fight against insecurity, and protect lives, and property in the state.

El-Rufai gave the assurance when the state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, presented the 2023 first quarter security report to him in Kaduna.

Aruwan said bandits killed 214 persons and kidnapped 746 others between January and March this year.

He said: “The report also indicated that of the 746 people kidnapped, Kaduna central senatorial district accounted for 492 victims followed by Kaduna south senatorial district with 221 while 33 people were abducted in Kaduna north senatorial district.”

In his remark, the governor assured the people of the state that his government would prevent the incidents through institutional measures and pragmatic actions.

He charged security operatives in the state to put more effort into dealing with the criminal elements in the state.

Kaduna State is one of the six states in the North-West affected by banditry with the criminals killing hundreds of people and, and displacing several others, especially in the Southern part of the state, in the last eight years.

El-Rufai said: “These measures include persistent pressures on the federal government to launch comprehensive and sustained military operations against the terrorists and criminal elements that are menacing our people and their lives, liberty, and livelihoods.

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“There is every reason to intensify and sustain simultaneous ground and air kinetic actions across the seven frontline states of the Northwest region and Niger which have continuous and contiguous forest ranges and are most heavily impacted by this security challenge.

“We have invested considerable resources and energy in managing security to the extent that the Constitution of our nation permits a subnational.

“Our interventions since 2015 include supporting the federal security agencies deployed in our state with vehicles and other logistics, collaborating with other frontline states to fund military operations in the 2015-2016 period, and investments in security infrastructure and technology.

“The lessons learnt in the 2016-2019 period informed our decision to establish the first sub-national ministry of internal security and home affairs at the beginning of our second term in 2019.

“The mandate of the ministry is to manage the state government’s relationship with the federal security agencies deployed in the state and to coordinate their activities towards securing our people in an atmosphere of unprecedented challenges.”

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