With armed bandits continually attacking villages in several frontline local government areas in Katsina State six days after the amnesty granted suspected criminals by almost all northern states governors, Second Republic deputy senate president, Mamman Abubakar Danmusa said, the situation portends danger for Nigeria.
Addressing a press conference at his Katsina country home yesterday, the 77-year-old legal practitioner lamented that state governments were helpless in the face of the current happenings.
“This situation which we are now in, if it’s not checked in time, it will snowball into terrible situation for Nigeria,” warned Danmusa as he appealed for prompt action from the President.
He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to contact the Emir of Katsina to give him the reports which district heads are giving him about their subjects, who are driven from their homes and losing their property to hoodlums that are molesting their wives and daughters.
“Even in my house in Danmusa, there are about 150 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) there. I am not government. You can see the situation,” the erstwhile fiery politician stated, when he called on National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to get victims of the banditry food and shelter.
He also expressed concern that when the young men driven from their communities this rainy season would return later with nothing to fall back on, they may turn to armed banditry and become criminals too.
Hear him: “It is better to act now to forestall that happening. For me, I am appealing because this not a matter for Katsina State government. It’s a matter for the President. The President knows Mamman, he knows I don’t speak nonsense; when I speak I certainly have my facts to back up what I said.”
He regretted that the situation in Batsari, Safana, Danmusa, Kankara and Jibiya local government areas had deteriorated to the extent that he could not be silent any longer.
“I continue to ask myself, was it not Mamman who in March, 1960, at Katsina Teachers College, who led a demonstration against injustice when he was in class one which led to his expulsion from the college? Is he the same person who will now keep quiet when injustice and inhumanity are being committed?
“I think I will not do justice to myself and my family if I keep silent. Therefore I decided to address the press on the true situation in Katsina State” he added.
It’s worst in the frontline local government areas than anybody can imagine,” he declared.
