Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State has urged Nigerians to appreciate his administration’s peace and dialogue initiative in the quest to curb banditry and insecurity.
The governor noted this on Thursday when he received another group of repentant bandits. He believes his reconciliation and dialogue initiative is for the benefit of the country and not Zamfara State alone.
While insisting that not all Fulanis are criminals, the governor said some of them have been pushed to criminality.
Some of the weapons and ammunition surrendered by the repentant bandits include seven AK-47, two general-purpose machine guns, one rocket-propelled grenade launcher, several live ammunitions and anti-craft ammunitions.
As the government seeks to tackle criminality, more bandits have been surrendering their weapons and ammunition and embracing the peace initiative of the northwestern state.
On Tuesday, seven repentant bandits surrendered their weapons to the government and vowed to abandon their former ways.
They also welcomed the reconciliation process, released eight kidnapped victims who are mostly women.
The governor while receiving the seven repentant bandits and eight women who were kidnapped, thanked God for the successes recorded in the fight against banditry in the state.
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He appealed to people of the state to see the fight against insecurity as everybody’s business by providing credible intelligence to security operatives to help them succeed in eliminating banditry.
The previous day, three notorious bandits surrendered their weapons to the Zamfara Government.
After giving up their AK-47 rifles and other ammunition, the bandits swore with the Holy Qua’ran not to return to banditry.
One of them who spoke in Hausa at the Government House in Gusau said that they have sincerely accepted the peace initiative of the state government; pledging not to commit dastardly acts any longer.
