Ex-Gov Yerima reveals cause of increase in banditry, insecurity in the North

Ahmad Sani Yerima, a former governor of Zamfara State, said that those who engage in banditry do so out of a combination of illiteracy and poverty.

This follows his prior remarks urging the Federal Government to negotiate with bandits in an effort to end the kidnappings, murders, and incursions that plague some areas of the North.

Speaking on Friday’s episode of Politics Today on Channels Television, Senator Yerima claimed that a good education would have prevented them from carrying out the evil deed in the first place.

“No educated person, Christian Muslim, Jew or Hindu who is in his right state of mind and has something to do and does not have a poverty problem that will take up arms and kill an innocent person.

“The major problem facing these people is poverty and ignorance,” Yerima said when quizzed about the reason for the growing case of banditry.

Read Also: Ex-Gov Yerima urges Tinubu to dialogue with bandits, Boko Haram fighters

Speaking further, the former Deputy Minority Leader of the Senate also claimed that the previous governments had failed to address the plights of the bandits

“In the past various state government have not taken care of them, and the cattle routes and forest reserves left for them have been taken over by farmers,” he said.

Speculations that the existence of natural resources like gold played a significant role in the emergence of banditry in his state were also refuted by Senator Yerima.

“This has always been there and the illegal mining that is going on there is of a very small scale; artisan mining.”

“We don’t have any industry or any large-scale or medium-scale mining going on in the state. People are just talking about it but we have solid minerals in the Northern part of Nigeria but that is not the cause at all,” he said.

“The Federal government’s previous administration banned all sorts of mining in Nigeria because they are all illegal.”

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