Rights group blames Matawalle’s peace deals with bandits for escalating insecurity in Zamfara

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has blamed Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, for the unending insecurity in the state with the peace deals he entered into with bandits and terrorists.

The group in a statement on Wednesday, said the peace deals with bandit kingpins by Matawalle’s administration was encouraging banditry, kidnapping and sundry crimes in the state.

READ ALSO:Zamfara bandits kidnap district head, six others

The HURIWA statement issued by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the security situation in the Northern state has worsened to a situation where bandits and terrorists operate freely, kidnapping people and terrorising defenceless citizens, imposing taxes on them and making demands of food and ransom payment from them.

“The Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle has failed the people as the chief security officer and does not deserve to be remembered on the positive page of history, going by the ceaseless abductions recorded in Zamfara, which is a major transit to other Northern states,” the group said.

The group said many incidents of abductions in the state would not have been possible if the Governor had not treated the bandits with kids gloves by entering the peace deals with them.

“Governor Matawalle is to be blamed for the incessant attacks by bandits because, for a long time, his administration lies in bed with bandits through illegal and counter-productive peace deals and amnesty programmes.

“What deal does a governor has to make with killers and bloodsucking demons but to crush them through the instrumentality of the state in collaboration with security agencies?”

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