More people killed in Zamfara than Benue, Taraba, Plateau–Yari

Zamfara State Governor Abdulaziz Yari yesterday said that more people were killed in his state than in Benue, Taraba and Plateau States.

He called on his colleagues in the three states not to view the situation as ethnic or religious conflicts, but pure criminality.

Speaking yesterday at a town hall meeting on the federal government’s measures to curb killings, Yari said: "The number of people killed in Zamfara state outnumbered those killed in the three states combined and those responsible for the killings are somewhat professing the same religion with those being killed.”

He said from 2019 to date, his state had recorded over 60 major attacks on 500 communities by armed bandits and cattle rustlers.

Yari said over 313 grain silos, 600 vehicles as well as hundreds of shops and residential houses were destroyed within the period.

The governor said 535 people were reportedly kidnapped by armed bandits, stressing N75 million ransom was paid to free kidnapped people in Dansadau Emirate alone.

He said over 3,000 assorted arms had been recovered from armed men, adding that the state had spent over N17 billion on security.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Muhammad, said measures taken by the federal government to end farmers-herdsmen conflict included the deployment of a Joint Military Intervention Force comprising regular and special forces personnel from the Army, the Air Force and the Navy.

Photo: NAN Heads of security agencies after a news conference by the Imo State police commissioner in Owerri yesterday, where residents of the state were told to disregard the “sit at home” directive by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB on September 14