Equip vigilantes to tackle bandits, lawmakers tell Niger gov

 

The Niger State House of Assembly has moved a motion asking the executive arm to equip the non-conventional security agencies with more sophisticated weapons to combat bandits and terrorists.

The lawmakers request came barely two weeks after bandits carried out a failed attempt to abduct the chairman of Tafa Local Government Area, Danladi Itah, from his Sabon Wuse residence.

The house resolution raised on Wednesday followed a matter of urgent public importance brought up by members representing Tafa and Munya state constituencies, Sani Idris and Joseph Duza, respectively, at the plenary, where they raised the alarm over the escalation of bandit activities in their local government areas.

In the motion, Idris called on Governor Mohammed Bago to, as a matter of urgency, strengthen the security architecture in the Tafa Local Government Area to curb the menace of banditry in the local government, pointing out that the last two months had been “hell on earth” for the people of the area.

“In the last few months, bandits have been unleashing mayhem on the people of Tafa local government area, maiming, killing and abducting people from different communities in the local government,” he said.

Idris disclosed that within one month, gunmen have launched nine different attacks on communities across the local government, killing two people and abducting 13 others.

Some of the abducted victims, he said, included a Reverend Father, Paul Sanogo, and two foreigners, a Malian and a Kenyan, who were picked from the Haram community by the local government.

He also pointed out that these incessant attacks by kidnapers and bandits at the fringes of the local government and Bwari Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory “has become unprecedented and a worrisome development to the people of the area.”

“It is affecting both human and economic activities of the area. This is even as the people cannot go to their farm to harvest their farm produce as a result of this ugly activities of the kidnappers,” Idris said.

Some of the communities that have suffered at the hands of these bandits, Idris listed, include Kuchiko, Ijah, Daupe, Katampe and Ijah Gbagyi and they called on the executive arm of government to urgently establish military and local hunters/vigilantes camps around Ijah Gbagyi, Zhibi and Gyedna communities that share borders with the FCT.

He also urged the assembly to ask the executive arm to collaborate with the FCT administration to engage developers that can establish meaningful economic activities in the extensive dense forests that border Tafa LGA and Bwari Area Council in the FCT, which, he said, has continued to provide a safe heaven for the bandits.

In his motion, Duza from Munya Constituency said there is a need for the state government to properly equip the local vigilantes and other security agencies in the state to withstand the superior firepower of these bandits.

This, he said, should be done in accordance with the Niger State Vigilante (Amendment) Corps Law 2021, which empowers the special vigilante armed squad to bear arms in accordance with the Firearms Act 2004.

“There is the need for the state government to redirect parts of the monthly allocation of the security funds of the local government councils towards the procurement of these arms and ammunitions for the vigilantes and other security agencies in the state,” Duza said.

Source: Punch Newspapers