by Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna
Kaduna State Governor, Sen. Uba Sani, on Monday evening said he is “working collaboratively” with the security agencies, especially the military, to return the displaced persons in Southern part of the state to their ancestral homes.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been reportedly displaced from their ancestral homes in the area decades before and after the immediate past administration of Governor Nasir el-Rufal, of Kaduna State by insurgence without any efforts made to return them back to their homes.
Governor Sani, who made the assertion, while featuring on TVC Journalists’ Hangout, monitored in Kaduna, expressed regret over the recent banditry attacks in some parts of the state, saying, “Although, the state has been relatively peaceful,” since he took over a few months ago.
He stressed that his administration has been doing a lot in terms of uniting the people of the state, empowering local security systems, and equipping conventional security agencies, among other strategies, to address the security situation in the state.
According to him, “No state can handle this issue of invasion and, of course, because we are sharing borders with Niger and Katsina States, which have also been affected by banditry issue, I have been talking with them and I’m so happy that the governors of Katsina and Niger States are working closely with Kaduna State to ensure we have adequate security in our borders.
“Like I said, the approach may not be 100 percent the same. My position was very clear, and that is the application of a non-kinetic approach to this issue of insecurity, which might be a bit different.
“For instance, we need to look at the economy of the people in these areas, because most of the kidnappings are happening with the collaboration of informants in these rural communities.
“If we look at this issue critically, a non-kinetic approach has to do with good governance, improving the economy of the people in the rural areas; providing basic amenities such as education, health care and empowerment will help us to reduce insecurity.
“So, for me, I’m putting more emphasis and efforts on the people of rural areas because that is the only way we can solve the problem.
“Like I always said, the spate of insecurity now is not what we face in the northeast, because largely what is happening in the North-west is an economic issue,” he said.
On infrastructural development, he said, “Our budget for 2024 is a budget of rural development. When I came in, I looked at the situation of Kaduna and saw that 70 percent of our people, who are living in rural areas, are living below the poverty line.
“We then decided to aggressively initiate some projects in rural local government areas. We decided to build three major skills acquisition centres in the three senatorial zones. Each of them will graduate at least 1,500 skilled population every year, and as we speak, the projects are progressing.
“Again, we did groundbreaking of about 16 roads in rural and urban settings, totaling over 500 kilometres since I became Governor, in May 2023. To me, it is a major effort towards linking our rural local governments to our urban counterparts.
“So, we are addressing development deficit among these local governments, and that is one of the sure ways of building the economy of rural areas, thereby, naturally addressing the issue of banditry and other social vices,” he added.