Kaduna State governor, Nasir Ahmed el-Rufa’i, has disclosed that since 2015, bandits, killer herdsmen and Boko Haram insurgents have become more daring under President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Speaking during the second quarter 2021 meeting of the Directors of State Commands of the State Security Service (SSS) in the North-West, in Kaduna on Thursday, el-Rufa’i admitted that insecurity had worsened under President Buhari though the federal government has particularly and repeatedly claimed to have decimated Boko Haram.
Although, el-Rufa’i is considered an ally of the incumbent president, who assumed power in 2015 with a vow to crush Boko Haram and other criminal elements ravaging Nigeria, the governor acknowledged that “the criminal gangs have become more daring and dangerous since recovering from their near defeat in 2015 is obvious across the country”.
Apart from the protracted violence in Southern Kaduna, the State has become a hotbed of banditry where criminals kidnap for ransom and violently attack communities.
According to security reports by the State government, over 300 persons were killed and about 1,000 kidnapped people kidnapped between January and April 2021.
The governor further lamented that Kaduna and other parts of the country did not get enough security cover from President Buhari’s administration, saying, “We, in the Kaduna State government, are convinced that we do not have enough boots on the ground to cover the whole of Nigeria. We have too few policemen. We have too few officers, men and women of the armed forces.
However, el-Rufa’i touted his goverment’s efforts to tackle the security crisis.
“We have in the last five years been installing a closed-circuit TV system across the Kaduna metropolis,” he told the SSS directors. “We hope that this project will be completed within the next one year, and with that, the police and other security agencies will be empowered to be able to take pre-emptive action to deter criminals”, he stated.
