A katsina based pressure group known as ‘Awareness for good leadership, peace and development’ on Monday called on katsina state Government and other states with security challenges, especially in the North-West, to assist the internally displaced persons (IDP) in becoming farmers to boost food production.
It also encouraged communities that are under bandits’ attacks to start defending themselves against the bandits.
The group made the declaration at a press conference in Katsina.
The Group President, Abdullahi Katsina who read its address at the press conference, said its members had carried out an investigation in Katsina state and observed that the Internally displaced persons in the state and in other states with similar security challenges were just roaming around instead of being constructively engaged in farming.
The group maintained that most of internally displaced persons were successful farmers who were forced to abandon their various communities due to incessant raids by bandits.
It declared ” Due to our recent survey and investigation, we discovered all internally displaced persons (IDP’s) are successful farmers. We are calling on katsina state government and all other state governors with cases of armed banditry to invest hugely on IDP’s with a view to attaining good security in the affected states. As successful farmers, if state governors get IDP’s data and provide them with farmland, fertilizer and all necessary equipment for farming, the IDP’s can successfully farm what we need as a state and successfully sell it out for profit making. In katsina state if the state government can engage two thousand IDP’s and provide each with 3 hectars of farmland that is enough to force the food price down and available for all.”
The group also suggested that residents of communities experiencing constant raids by bandits should begin to defend their communities against bandits.
It declared that if residents could summon up courage and start confronting bandits whenever they attack their communities, the rate at which bandits attack communities will reduce.
It declared ” After a long time of villages invasion in katsina state and other states in the northwest we got to a conclusion that; if federal government can spend over five trillion with an aim of tackling armed banditry and yet the cases are increasing day by day, then there should be a different approach, that approach is allowing the communities to protect their territory against the invasion of armed banditry. Let state governors supervise the security architecture of each local government so that the operation could be according to the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria.
The group also declared ” We all understand the federal government is busy coming up with series of modalities on how best they can to put an end to the security challenges facing the nation, likewise the states are now beginning to introduce state security architectures but local governments can contribute nothing in tackling the insecurity because their monthly grant from federation allocation is hanging with the state governments. We are calling on all state governments, particularly those that are affected by the insurgency to allow local governments to receive their grant so that they can complement the efforts of the federal government and state.”
The group suggested that there should be a synergy among the Federal, state and local government for banditry and other crimes to be effectively tackled.
“Most local government chairmen cannot execute any developmental project in spite of an increase in the allocation coming to the local governments. Let there be a synergy between all the three arms of government so that together they can put an end to all sorts of crime and criminality bedeviling Nigeria today,” the group declared.