Zamfara: We secured release of 300 without ransom – Mutawalle
Zamfara State Governor Bello Muhammad Mutawalle has said that the state government has secured the release of 300 captives from bandits without paying ransoms.
He said last Saturday night in Abuja during the signing of a $1bn Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the state and the African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) for mining,
agriculture, water resources and other infrastructural developments in the state.
“Zamfara State had so many issues before my emergence as the governor. Within just a month, God helped us to tackle some of these issues. Today, we can call Zamfara State as a peaceful state in Nigeria. For your information, for the first time in four weeks, there has been no report of any incident like kidnapping or killing of citizens. Our administration is committed to giving a full secured state and we have started that by engaging the bandits in peace, which they have accepted to lay down their arms.
“As at today, we have secured the release of over 300 people that are under captivity. The securing of the release of these people was done without any commitment; no single kobo or ransom was paid to the bandits. So we assure you that Zamfara State is safe for investors,” Mutawalle said.
President of the Cairo based bank, Prof. Benedict Okey Oramah, said “Altogether, the investments we have discussed which we prioritise based on the speed of having to get them done amounts to about $1bn.”
“We also discussed resources partnership in the area of agriculture and water to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities presented by the system in Zamfara State, not only to generate electricity but also for Agriculture.
“In particular, is the plan on partnership for reviving the cotton industry in Zamfara State, there is no reason why Zamfara State cannot produce cotton as Republic of Benin which is now the largest producer of cotton in Africa; there is no reason why Zamfara State cannot produce more cotton than the Burkina Faso or Mali do. Everything is there in Zamfara and history is on its side,” he said.