Katsina Residents Protest Banditry

Residents of the communities affected by banditry in Kankara Local Government Area of Katsina State on Saturday urged the government to intensify efforts to protect their lives and property.

The call was made during a peaceful protest, highlighting the recurring bandit activities in the area. The residents blocked the busy Marabar-Kankara to Katsina and Kano State road, as well as the road linking Malumfashi to Funtua and Kaduna State.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, resident Muhammad Sabiu expressed their desire for the government to address the issue urgently, lamenting, “What is happening in these areas is bad.”

“The most affected areas include Malumfashi West, Burdugau, Unguwar-Danguna, Yar-Teba, Dangume, up to Yargoje. Right now, there are corpses of people killed by the bandits in the bush, and they have prevented us from evacuating them. The killings happened three days ago. This is what is happening day and night in our communities. We are calling on the government and the authorities concerned to intensify measures to curtail the problem. They have even prevented some of us from farming, so life in those places has become extremely difficult,” he said.

Another resident, Alhaji Salmanu Yusuf, said, “We blocked the roads to show our sadness over the high rate of insecurity in the communities. Most of the children around us are orphans and they don’t have food to eat, so we need urgent support.”

Sagir Sa’ad also decried the high rate of insecurity in their areas, noting, “Right now, there are over 12 corpses of people killed by the bandits that have not been evacuated.”

When contacted, the Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Dr. Nasiru Muazu-Danmusa, said, “It is over, and the protesters were already addressed by the Galadiman Katsina, District Head of Malumfashi.”

Recently, the North-West Governors’ Forum and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organized a security summit to address the lingering insecurity in the region. The two-day summit, held in Katsina on June 24, was themed “Regional Cooperation for Securing Lives and Livelihoods.”

The state governor, Dikko Radda, Chairman of the forum, emphasized the importance of collectively confronting the menace. He stated their goal was to provide peace and ensure the security of lives and property in the region.