Zamfara State commissioner of Security and Home Affairs, Hon. Abubakar Mohammed Dauran has revealed that almost all the offensive operations in the state by Fulani people have been recorded to be reprisal attacks.
The commissioner disclosed this during an exclusive interview with DAILY POST in his office in Gusau, the state capital, pointing out that there is no smoke without fire.
” I have never seen anywhere in the whole wide-world where peace reigns without justice because justice remains the bedrock of peace in every society,” he said.
” Fulani people in Zamfara State have been subjected to so much humiliations and reduced to third-class citizens by the Yansakai groups, hence they are reacting bitterly like wounded lions ”
He said that the recent attack in Dansadau axis that killed fifteen persons and injured many was a reprisal attack, saying that one of the Yansakai groups attacked two Fulani men killing one while the other escaped which he said that their motorcycles were collected from them.
Our reporter reports that the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Mohammed Shehu insists that the terror attack claimed only ten lives, not fifteen as reported by some dailies.
Read Also: Herdsmen Attack Zamfara Communities, Kill 15, Injure Many
Dauran explained that the Yansakai groups serve as launching pads for offensive operations to deny the Fulanis their legitimate rights even in their own environments.
He, however, noted that Yansakai groups constantly unleash terror attacks on the Fulani people at will because they had the total support of the government during the tenure of ex-Governor Abdula Aziz Yari, saying that they always took away their cattle which he said the herdsmen would boldly execute their reprisal attacks.
According to the commissioner, the Fulani people cannot attack anybody if they were not attacked, stressing that the Yansakai groups still remain the teething problem in the state as far as banditry is concerned.
” That is why the present administration believes that guns and bullets alone or fire for fire operation against the bandits cannot totally defeat banditry and restore total peace to the state ”
”The State government must give priority to defeating the Yansakai groups and political Serb version, not only fixing blames on the Fulani people. In other words, heaping blame on the Fulani people is not the primary priority of the present administration but defeating the entire decayed system and those shadowy characters behind the dastard activities”
Dauran said that unless the state government addresses this major issue, the state would continue to remain the colony of banditry for decades, stressing that the situation would always be one step forward, ten steps backwards.
The commissioner said that the current spate of insurgency that has prevailed in the state for almost a decade has reduced the state to a mere rural state as commerce and agricultural activities are almost moving in the lowest ebb in the state.
He blamed the immediate past administration in the state for lack of security foresight, saying that the lack of security foresight allowed banditry to escalate to the highest level, pointing out that over 500 Yansakai people were recruited from each emirate of the state which he said worsened the whole situation.
“This administration has concluded all necessary arrangements to recruit new Yansakai groups that can be working under the watchful eyes of the police. And they would not be allowed to carry guns or bullets, but to assist the security operatives with vital information that can end the dastard activities in the state”
According to him, it was the coronavirus that is presently ravaging the entire world that has delayed the recruitment, stressing that as soon as the COVID-19 subsided, the recruitment exercise would commence.
Commenting on the recommendation of the security committees to the state governor to sack five emirs out of the seventeen emirs in the state whom the committees found wanting, the commissioner also placed the delay on sacking the emirs on the same COVID-19.
The Zamfara commissioner assured that the state government was on top of the security issue, saying that anybody found wanting must be made to face the full wrath of the law of the land.
DAILY POST