In line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent directive to quell the rising insecurity in the northern parts of the country, the 19 state governors of the region met with heads of security agencies in the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (retd) in Abuja.
Speaking with State House correspondent on the outcome of the meeting, Zamfara State Governor, Bello Muhammad Matawalle disclosed that the meeting centred on stemming the incessant attacks in the region.
Recall that the northern states are faced with Boko Haram terrorists in the North East, Herdsmen in the North Central and banditry in the Northwest.
Matawalle, who met behind closed doors with the Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari at the Presidential Villa, said that the state has adopted a carrot and stick approach in dealing with insecurity.
The governor added that the repentant bandits that have embraced peace have been reintegrated, while those that have shunned dialogue are facing the full wrath of the law.
Asked what was the agenda of the meeting, he said, “I am here to see the Chief of Staff because of the issue of security that is bedevilling Zamfara State. We have discussed extensively about the issue of insecurity in the Northern Nigeria, not just Zamfara State.
“We met in the National Security Adviser’s office with Northern Governors and the Inspector General of Police and other security agencies.
“We discussed seriously on the issue of insecurity and the Chief of Staff invited me today to come and brief him about insecurity in my state, which I did.
“We have discussed it and understand where we are going. Zamfara State government and the security (agencies) are doing their best to ensure we contain insecurity.”
Fielding question on the success of security operations against the bandits in the state, he said that the security agencies were doing everything possible to bring normalcy to the place.
He said, “It is very successful. Security agencies are doing very well and they have been working for about one month and we have seen the results, they have recorded a lot of successes in their operations.
“You know these operations are ongoing and they have support of everything they need from the state and we assure Nigerians that within some few days they will make tremendous achievements.”
Commenting on the home grown solutions his administration adopted in ensuring that the rise in insecurity was stopped, he said that the government adopted the stick and carrot approach.
“We have to adopt so many ways to tackle the insecurity. We use a carrot and stick and it is going concurrently. There are some repentant bandits that have already subscribed to the peace initiative, we are using them and some that have refused to dialogue, we are fighting them, so we are using both”, he said.