The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu on Wednesday declared that state governors in Nigeria don’t dash out money to repentant bandits.
The IGP spoke during an interview programme monitored by Naija News where he spoke on issues of security and police operation in the North East and Nigeria as a whole.
He explained that when the military displaces bandits or other insurgents from particular locations, particularly in the North-East, and has liberated the residents, a special Police team known as the Civil Restoration Squad moves into such areas to maintain peace and security and help the people settle down to normal lives.
“I’ve never heard or seen any governor giving money to bandits. What the Governors are doing really is that those bandits who have surrendered their arms and are no more into banditry, the Governors consider them as their citizens and they try to look for alternative means of survival for them but they don’t give them money to say okay go home.”
“They look for alternative means of survival and engaging them because they know these people will need one form of business or the other to do for them to survive,” IGP Adamu said during the interview with Arise TV.
The declaration of the Police Chief is in line with a recent denial issued by the Zamfara State government where it denied allegations of buying Hilux vehicles for repentant bandits and paying them millions of naira.
The government in a statement signed by the Special Adviser to Governor Bello Mattawale on Media and Communications, Zailani Bappa described the allegation as false and misleading.
It will be recalled Sahara Reporters had in one of its publications, alleged the Zamfara State Governor has shared about fifteen brand new Hilux vehicles to leaders of different repentant bandits in the state.
It added that he also shared millions of naira to the repentant bandits as compensation.
A top military officer quoted in the report also noted that some bandits now carry out attacks with some of the vehicles given to them by the Zamfara Governor.
However, in a reaction to the story, the Zamfara state government has labelled the report as wicked and malicious.
It added that the story is capable of damaging the relative peace being enjoyed in Zamfara State.
Explaining the government side of the story, Bappa said the news platform failed to balance its story in failing to reach out to the government before publishing.
It further described the act as careless, a display of quackery and sheer mischief targeted at polluting the minds of law abiding and patriotic citizens of the state.
The statement added that the said vehicles were not donated to repentant bandits as claimed but to security agents in the state.
In other news, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has berated the presidency for its statement against his directive asking herdsmen to leave the state’s forest reserves.
Naija News recalls that Akeredolu had ordered herdsmen in the state to vacate the forest reserves within a period of seven days counting from Monday, 18th January.
The Governor also banned night grazing as well as highway and under-age grazing in the state.
But the presidency in a statement by President Muhammadu Buhari’s media assistant, Garba Shehu, rejected Akeredolu’s ultimatum to herdsmen.