From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
Katsina State governor, Aminu Bello Masari, has been taken to the cleaners by a criminologist at the University of Ibadan, Dr Oludayo Tade, over the call he made that people should acquire lethal weapons to defend themselves against bandits, that have been killing at will in the state.
He made this known on Thursday in his reaction to the call made by Masari, saying acquiring weapons by citizens in the name of self-defence would increase bandit cells and deepen insecurity.
Tade, noted that besides the issues of border porosity, the northwest states are leading in terms of unemployment and poor people in Nigeria and these two variables are triggers of criminality and social problems, which the region is facing.
According to him, “The statistics from the region from the National Bureau of Statistics in the last quarter of 2020 showed that Katsina alone has 25.5 per cent unemployment rate with about 438,808 people unemployed; Jigawa has 565,978 (38.69 per cent), Kaduna has 1,111,091 (44.35 per cent), Kano has 717,086 (25.5 per cent) while Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara have 213, 570 (17.25 per cent), 162,349 (14.48 per cent), 202, 568 (12.9 per cent) respectively.
“The statistics on poverty rate from the region is a sign of danger and failure of effective leadership. Who will you give weapons in a state like Zamfara with poverty rate of 73.98 per cent or in Sokoto with 87.73 per cent poor people? The least in the region has 43.48 per cent of her population as poor. So, who will be the civilian that is not already vulnerable to bad governance and will be given arms and not also use it as an opportunity to extort?
“Leaders from the zone should be objective to themselves and address what they have contributed to creating the monster of banditry? How many of them are close to the bandits?. Governance is not about enjoying the perks of office and shifting responsibilities to the vulnerable. Rise up and address the root cause of banditry. Weapon proliferation is already a problem and we should not add to it.”
Tade admonished the leadership in the region to put politics aside and join the call for state police, fight poverty and unemployment and rise up to defend their people.
