Shocking: Northern Govt Says We Bought Repentant Bandits Weapons Of N30 Million, Katsina Govt.
The Katsina state government has said she spent the sum of N30 million to buy off weapons belonging to the repentant cattle rustlers and bandits in the At a press conference on Monday, Mustapha Inuwa, secretary to the state government (SSG), said the fund was spent on buying of weapons from the repentant bandits and cattle rustlers, in order to disarm and discourage them from engaging in criminal activities.
In his words, the SSG said:
“We spent about N30 million on the amnesty programme. And of recent, we collected another N20 million out of which we spent only about N2 million after the programme collapsed,”
“We asked experts to assess the cost of a particular rifle before we gave money to the rifle’s owner.” Inuwa explained that the monies not expended were returned to the state coffers on several occasions.
Recalled that the state government under the leadership of Governor Bello Masari had on August 28, 2019 initiated amnesty programme and peace accord with repentant cattle rustlers and bandits, to ensure peace across the state.
However on Wednesday, June 3, 2020 the state government announced that the peace accord his administration signed with bandits troubling the state had collapsed as a result of continue attack in different part of the state.
The governor said in the agreement they signed with the state government, the bandits promised to repent and leave the north-western part of the country but the bandits betrayed the state as they could not honour the agreement. Masari vowed that the state government would never enter into any peace accord with bandits again.
