Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai has admitted that banditry and insurgency will pose a serious threat to the successful conduct of the 2023 general elections and population census, saying that if not nipped in the bud, both exercises might not just hold.
The outgoing Governor made this known while speaking yesterday when he received the state’s quarterly security report as presented by the state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan on Friday.
According to the report, a total of 446 people were killed while 1,789 others were equally kidnapped by bandits across the state in the last six months.
The government also went ahead to reveal that 152 bandits were killed and 624 others arrested by troops in different parts of the state during the period under review.
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In his response, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who was present at the presentation, stressed that the security situation in the country has tremendously improved, lamenting that the security alert issued by the United States embassy in Nigeria, has just just set the nation in panic mood and as well terrorised the citizens.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Kaduna which is a state located in the North-West zone, has had its own share of hightened attacks by bandits and terrorists in the past five years, with several lives lost, thousands kidnapped and means of livelihood disrupted.
Meanwhile, in what appears to be a fallback strategy to make up for the loss of five governors, popularly known as the G-5, the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, is presently in talks with five governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
This development the Atiku/Okowa presidential campaign organisation said the APC governors who are friends with Atiku have been consulting with the former vice president on how to support him.
According to the PDP campaign team, the five APC governors are willing to jump ship because they believe Atiku has a more believable manifesto and better experience to manage Nigeria.