Matawalle: We backed out of dialogue with bandits because they deceived us

Bello Matawalle, governor of Zamfara, says the state reversed the decision to dialogue with bandits because the government was deceived.

Matawalle had previously said dialogue is the best option to tackle banditry in the country.

He had also asked his colleagues to endeavour to negotiate with bandits in the interest of promoting peace.

But while attending a Juma’at service on September 10, the governor said the state will no longer offer amnesty to repentant bandits.

Speaking on Thursday while fielding questions from state house correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, held at the presidential villa in Abuja, Matawalle said the state now enjoys relative peace.

He said the state government remains committed in the fight against banditry, adding that the measures put in place to restore peace have yielded results.

“They have deceived us. Some of them did not follow what we agreed with them. We thought it was something we could continue with them, but we later realised that they had deceived us. So, we had to back out of it and decide to fight them to a logical conclusion,” he said.

“As you know, we are there fighting and we have taken a lot of measures in order to curtail this problem of insurgency. We thank God it’s yielding a lot of results. We’ve recorded a lot of successes from what we have done.

“As you are aware, we have a lot of security personnel that were deployed to Zamfara state and they are working seriously.”

On the current situation in the state, Matawalle said there is calm and people are going on with their daily activities.

“It’s just that we have cut a lot of things, particularly moving of foodstuffs, animals and selling of petroleum products,” he said.

“We have imposed a lot of measures and the people are happy with the measures, because the people had suffered a lot; people were being killed and kidnapped every day before, but today we have succeeded. We don’t have many of such issues in Zamfara state.”

Zamfara, in recent times, has recorded numerous attacks by bandits on communities across the state.

In an effort to curb insecurity, the Zamfara government recently announced a temporary ban on the transportation of livestock beyond the state’s borders.

The state has also ordered the closure of weekly markets, while transportation of food items will be subject to verification.