The Interview Editors
Senior Special Assistant to the president on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu has accused some traditional rulers from President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state, Katsina, of collaborating and aiding banditry.
Shehu, who made this statement while speaking on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, said some traditional rulers were complicit in collaboration with bandits.
He said, “It is not that we are making direct accusations on anyone but it is also true that even in the president’s native state of Katsina, some traditional rulers have been found complicit in collaboration with the bandits to harm their own people.”
Shehu added that efforts by the Nigerian Airforce to clear out bandits were at some point frustrated as informants were helping them to escape.
“At some point, the Nigerian Air Force had to put a number of aircraft in Katsina, they are still there. In the early part of that operation attacking Zamfara which then was the epicentre.
“They realised that once aircraft took off from Katsina airport, before it got to Zamfara for operation, telephone calls would have been made and targets would have disappeared. In the end we were forced to be flying from distant places like Kaduna and Kano in order to undertake operations in Zamfara.”
“All of us as citizens have a duty to the nation to provide information to our armed forces,” he said.
Recently, Katsina State has been the hotbed of banditry in country. Last week over 50 persons were reportedly killed in different bandit attacks, though president Buhari visited the state and warned bandits to surrender their weapons.
