In this interview in Abuja with journalists from different media houses, Governor of Katsina State, Dikko Umaru Radda, spoke on efforts his government is taking to tackle insecurity in the state, why he wants to synergise with other northern state governors to curb the problem and other issues
How are you confronting insecurity with the new Community Watch Corps?
The essence of government is to protect the lives and properties of individuals. Since I was sworn in as a governor, I always receive report of criminal activities. My number one priority as a governor is to tackle the issue of insecurity. It is something that is vested under the control of the Federal Government, and all other security operatives.
We the governors are the so-called chief security officers of our States, but we can’t command the military and the paramilitary. There is still a higher order from above.
However, we are aware of the challenges in terms of the number of the security personnel we have in the country. In some of the local councils in my state, we find out that we have less than 50 police officers with a population of nothing less than two hundred thousand people. Katsina State is a State that has an estimated population of over 10 million people. So you can only imagine, there’s no way that number of security operatives will be adequate to protect that large number of people. There are things that happen even within the communities, which the security operatives would not be able to fight alone, so we involved the locals.
After my inauguration as governor, I engaged the services of experts to draft the Community Watch Corps Bill, which was sent to the state Assembly. Within three weeks, the Assembly was able to return it and I have assented to it.
Before then, I had a security committee during my campaign, which I have transformed into a full-fledged committee to come up with modalities on how to select those community watch officers. They went into action immediately, day and night and a lot of the members of the committee are retired military officers, DSS or the police, as well as the academia. We got all of them involved. They came up with a lot of concepts and framework to develop a way on how to recruit the Community Watch Officers in a professional manner.
We are guided by the rules and regulations guiding the recruitment of the military, the police, and the civil Defence. We developed our recruitment form, which was fully endorsed by the security outfits in the state. They also provided us with their personnel to aid us in the screening and recruitment exercise of the Community Watch Corps. Things were developed. We went back to the community, especially the ones that were affected. We started with the eight frontline local councils because we believe that if we’re able to block them, it will make it difficult for the criminals to move about as they wish in the state.
We sent the forms to interested persons to volunteer into the service. There were more than 2500 applicants that filled the forms, we screened them, did the medical, we involved the NDLEA to test for drugs. They came from the army and the police and the hospital board, brought in medical doctors to examine those people. We also made the age bracket to be within the range of 20 to 35 years. Our major concern is not in the quality of your certificate, but in your ability to protect the lives of the people. That is why we chose people from the affected places, because they are aware of the pain. So they’ll have more courage to face the situation. They are able to identify the location of those people; they know their whereabouts.
After they were trained by the military and the police, they were commissioned, and issued all their necessary requirements to carryout their assignment. Seven hundred motorcycles, more than 65 Hiluxes, 10 armored vehicles were purchased for them to confront the bandits, including all necessary gadgets. They were kitted and ready for the job as of last week.
The essence is to have a greater number that can confront these problems that we promised to solve. Governance is about lives and property of the people.
How do you intend to equip this Community Watch Corps with weapons?
It is a double-edged sword. We cannot fold our arms and say we will not protect ourselves because we don’t have the sophisticated arms that these bandits have. We have the numbers, we have the zeal and the determination, and you should remember, if they are going for any outing, it is just like the way it was done in Borno through the Civilian JTF, they will be covered by the police and the military who are heavily armed. So, I think it is a concerted and joint effort. And I think gradually, we are working within what the law allows us to possess. We cannot go beyond what the law allows us to do.
We are driving towards that and we are seeking reforms within the federal government in that regards. If a bandit can go to the market and buy AK-47, RPG, and all of those weapons, what of the people that want to protect themselves, they too should equally be allowed to do so. These people are holding it illegally, we are trying to hold it legally. Why can’t the government allow the people to hold this thing and equally confront the challenges?
Meanwhile, with the steps we have taken so far, that bandits are panicking. It is an obligation for us to protect ourselves. It is even against our religious belief to allow someone to just come and kill us and take our property just like that. We have to put efforts to protect ourselves and that is the aim of the government. So we would continue seeking collaboration to address the challenges.
Is this initiative not a way of introducing state police surreptitiously?
The issue is it has to start from somewhere. I just mentioned that Zamfara State has passed the law, Sokoto is doing same and others are trying to set up committees. I have mentioned it earlier that we cannot achieve success if we do not have the cooperation of neighbouring States. So, we are already cooperating in this regard. The issue is we are going to do the best we can do and so long as we are in government, we are going to sustain this. I am telling you this is a law that was enacted by the state assembly and signed by the governor. So whoever comes in will have to repeal the law before this could be stopped. That is why before we started, we have to put a law in place because laws can stay longer after we exit. Our mandate is four years.
How has insecurity affected agriculture in the State?
85% of our population are engaged in one form of agricultural activity or the other as a source of livelihood for every citizen of the State. Insecurity has affected productivity. In some places you cannot even go to the farm and some citizens of the State were turned into slaves. They will do all the farming, the bandits will come with their guns, harvest and take it to the bandits’ leaders house. They became slaves in a country that has freedom, where everyone has a right to life and living. And it surprises me to hear some people say abuse of human rights; who is abusing who? Those people that you don’t allow to go to farms, those people that you kill, those people that you rape their wives? Are those ones the ones violating human rights or it is when a bandit is killed that human rights is being violated? I don’t know, we have to redefine what is human rights.
Do you have protection for whistleblowers who provide intelligence?
I have made it very simple and easy for anyone in Katsina who has information to come and say it directly to the governor to avoid leaking the information elsewhere. That was why I mentioned earlier, the next neighbor sitting close to you, you don’t know who he is. You can only vouch for yourself.
That is why we are being extremely careful. I make myself available for anyone who has information, my phone is open and I receive so many valuable information from text messages on my phone. I was able to take action and a lot of arrests were made and the culprits were taken to court for justice. What we try to stop is jungle justice. So, we are trying as much as possible to ensure that we put so many checks on their activities to avoid innocent people being killed unnecessarily.
Do you have insurance provision for the security watch operatives? What particular support do you want from the federal government?
Motivation is very key. Right now, we have enrolled this community watch into the State Health Insurance Scheme to protect their children and spouses. Now, we are talking with a lot of insurance companies to see if we can have life insurance for these innocent citizens who have put their lives on the line for the protection of the citizens.
But you know we have just started, it is a process and we have begun with the health cover. After that, we will move to insurance of lives and property. And you should remember, in Katsina State, I have a Special Adviser on victims of banditry and criminalities in the State. We have earmarked some resources; every month, every victim of banditry in the State, whether security official or citizens, they get free medical support from the State government. Any security official who gets killed or injured, we have support for the family and we are going to formalise it by insuring their lives.
Even yesterday, I had a chat with Mr President, he told me he watched our programme live when we were commissioning the security outfit in Katsina State last week. And he has encouraged me and supported us because he said this is one of the best ways to go about it. The federal government is going to support us in that direction and concerted efforts are going to be made. You have seen the efforts that the security agencies are even making, things have really changed. Just last week, we saw how security agents killed over a hundred bandits in Zamfara State.
How would operatives of the Community Watch corps keep their arms? And what is your take on negotiating with bandits?
You know every police station has an armoury, that is where they keep their AK-47. That is the same place they keep their arms, and you must realise that we are up to 80 to 90% completion of all their outposts in each of the local councils. We are building outposts in each of the local councils involved and in those outposts, they have armoury where those arms can be kept. Their arms are kept in the custody of the police to ensure professional utilisation of the arms.
My take on the post-banditry activities is, I will not negotiate with bandits. Negotiations with bandits is a no go area in my perspective.
If I am at the point of advantage, if the bandits come out, and say we are dropping arms, let us sit down and talk, we could reintegrate them into the society. But I will not go begging bandits to come for negotiations. It is so disheartening and demoralizing.
An incident has just happened in Katsina State where there was negotiation, even though the state government was not involved or informed about it. We just saw it on social media, but the most mind boggling issue is instead of the negotiations to take place elsewhere, it happened in the full glare of the public. The civilians folded their arms seeing bandits who were killing their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, with fully kitted arms, sitting in a primary school negotiating with the Nigerian security operatives. That has really caused a lot of pressure on us, because the people are saying, if you are negotiating with bandits, what happened to us who are victims whose properties were destroyed, lives cut short, mothers raped. What plans do you have for us. It should be a win-win situation.
There should be a programme that tackles and addresses the issue of the victims before you start talking to a criminal to lay arms down. If you do one side and you neglect the other, you are not doing anything. You have only aggravated the problem. So you are simply telling the people to take arms because you only negotiate with the person who takes arms.
When you are negotiating with bandits, it is a sign of weakness for me. Let us deal with the situation. If they are weak, let them come out, let us negotiate and we will reintegrate them into the society. They are our people, our brothers, but we cannot protect a criminal. A criminal is a criminal regardless of his religion or ethnicity. This country has gone beyond the level of sentiments.