Governor. Dikko Radda of Katsina State said his saddest moment was anytime he received calls that bandits have attacked a community, killed people, kidnapped others, burnt houses or raped women. ..Read Full Article
Mr Radda stated this on Wednesday in Katsina at a press briefing as part of activities to mark his one year in office.
“My saddest moment is when I received calls that people were killed, houses burnt and women raped by bandits in a particular village.
“The only way to appreciate that is to put your shoes in their situation, and you will feel it.
“I have developed that feeling and it remained with me because my senior brother was killed by the bandits. He left behind three wives and 27 children,” he said.
Mr Radda said that when his administration came on board, 22 out of the 34 local governments were severely affected by insecurity.
According to him, by the time the government inaugurated the community security watch corps, the problem reduced drastically.
He said due to the intense pressure being mounted on the criminals, they have now resorted to attacking residents of hard-to-reach areas in the night, making it difficult for the security operatives to respond easily.
The governor advocated the creation of state police in the country.
“Before I became a governor, I was a critic of the state police. It is now that I see the importance of that,” he said.
Mr Radda further said that bad eggs in the society were affecting the ongoing efforts in the fight against insecurity in the state.
“There was a village head who was arrested for collecting N700,000 to allow bandits to attack the village and killed over 30 people,” he said.
Mr Radda said that the only way to address the problem was to use technology.
On the anniversary, the governor said though the government has recorded some achievements, he said they would not be carried away by those achievements.
“As a governor, I have set myself a very high target. I always make sure that the right person gets the right thing.
“That is why I moved away from an era of favouritism, lobbying, political consideration and making sure that our approach to government is to reach the people at the bottom of the pyramid,” he said.
Mr Radda revealed that recently, the government offered foreign scholarships to over 40 students who were children of the poor based on merit.
He added that the government recruited over 7,000 teachers, pointing out that they were also recruited on merit.
Mr Radda urged the people of the state to continue to support the administration’s policies and programmes aimed at improving their living conditions and move the state to greater heights.
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