(Our Position)
I think it is important we reminded the Minister of State Defense Bello Matawalle that Zamfara is worst hit by the menace of armed bandits and their heinous activities, not Sokoto.
When we first heard the report by the BBC that Minister State Defense and indeed all the service chiefs are to relocate to Sokoto to crush the armed bandits the likes of Bello Turji we were suspecting that Haruna Kakangi mistakenly uses Sokoto instead of Zamfara.
Because Bello Turji the popular bandit leader resides in Zamfara forest and his major operation are usually carried out between Shinkafi, Zurmi and part of Kaura Namoda forest.
And the recent incident which occurred on Saturday involving the capture of two military armored vehicles took place in between Zurmi and Shinkafi precisely Rukudawa forest which is also in between Zurmi and Shinkafi so why relocating military full force to Sokoto?.
But going through the officials statement released through the office of the Minister of State Defense Bello Matawalle which this medium also published, we came to realize that Kakangi was right in his report.
So we want to use this avenue to state our position that the Minister of State Defense Bello Matawalle is from Zamfara and also the immediate past Governor for that matter, and he knew how delicate the security situation of Zamfara looks like since when he was in charge and after he left the mantle of leadership.
To buttress our position his country home Maradun is never safe hence it is surrounded by deadly bandits. Just recently the bandits operating along Maradun suffered setback after attacking the neighboring Matusgi village in Mafara.
One cannot count the number of attacks suffered by people of Maradun especially those from Gora, Danbaza, Gidan Goga and Janbako all in Maradun and yet not a single condolence message we could rememberr came from the Minister of State Defense who is from same locality.
Zamfara his state required such military intervention not Sokoto and if he can move the military mighty he is planning to deploy to Zamfara secure the most terrible forest such as Munhaye, Dajin Ajja, Dajin Mada, Dajin Shinkafi to Isa, Dajin Dansadau and rest Sokoto certainly will be safe and secured.
Himself and many other stakeholders knew that “Zamfara is the safe heaven for the bandits” and the crisis of banditry was spilled over Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina and Kaduna and once Matawalle can use the mighty of the military to secure Zamfara he can be rest assured that states like Sokoto, Katsina and others would be safe.
We don’t want to believe that the Minister of State Defense is driven by emotion of deliberately ignoring Zamfara and it’s delicate security challenges simply because of the political difference he has with the seating Governor as widely alleged because he shall understand that he may have another political ambition in 2027 whether directly or indirectly, and it’s what he has done to the people of Zamfara that they would use to judge him politically.
The 2023 elections is a take home experience for himself and many of his advisers, and we think the Minister has understood the benefit of doing right to people because they owned the final verdict to assign to politicians.
So we see this as an obligation to remind the Minister that Zamfara not Sokoto needed his intervention and if he made the mistake of redirecting such energy required in Zamfara to Sokoto time will surely be his ultimate judge.
May Allah return peace to the North-west and the country by extension.
