From John Adams, Minna
Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello has expressed loss of confidfence in the country’s security agencies.
Governor Bello said this against the backdrop of his administration’s expenditure of “N2.4 billion on security in the last two years without results in the state.”
The governor stated this in Minna, yesterday, when the Council of Traditional Rulers, led by its chairman, Etsu Nupe, Dr. Yamaha Abubakar paid Sallah homage to him in Government House.
Bello expressed worry that the current security challenge in the country is alarming and needs urgent attention.
“We spend a lot of money on security but, we do not have a safe environment.
“In Niger state, we spend N100 million, every month on security. I am sure that if we spend a fraction of that money on traditional rulers, we will get better results than what we have now.”
He regretted that despite the huge amount voted and given to security agencies every month, “they have failed in making the state and nation safe, as crimes and insecurity seems to have come to stay in the nation.
As a result of this, the governor advocated that traditional rulers should be considered for security votes, so as to tackle security challenges in their domain “because we have lost hope in the security agencies in curtailing increasing rate of crimes and insecurity in the country.”
“I support that we go back to the traditional ways of securities in our communities; the traditional system performed better in the past and they can do better, now, if more powers are given to them.
“I recommend that we give more powers to traditional rulers in the area of security.”
The governor described as unfortunate, the new wave of crime sweeping across the state, and pointed out that “there is total breakdown of law and order in the state as criminals are beginning to take hold of the state.
“We need a lot of prayers in Niger state. We are faced with a new kind of security challenges that is unusual. There is a new wave of kidnapping, murder, armed robbery and herdsmen and community clashes.
“It is a new wave that seems to engulf the state. When people have decided to take laws into their hands and kill because they have conflict with others, then, you should know that we are in trouble.
“We are beginning to lose it as a people and as a state.
“In the past, nobody got away with murder, kidnapping or crime but, these days, kidnappers and criminal kingpins walk the street freely.
“As a governor, I am becoming afraid because I do not know who to trust or who to talk to,”he declared.