Following the gruesome murder of the Katsina State Commissioner of Science and Technology, Dr. Rabe Nasir, at his residence last Wednesday, the state Governor, Aminu Masari, has said Nasir’s death has nothing to do with banditry.
This is as he said all States in the Northwest must collaborate to address the security challenge troubling that region.
Masari was speaking to State House Correspondents on Tuesday after he led a delegation of elders from Katsina into a closed-door meeting with the President, Muhammadu Buhari, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to Masari, “The incident we had last week had nothing to do with banditry attack. It was purely an assassination by unknown killers, which the Police and other security agencies are working round the clock to unravel what happened.
“My commissioner was killed by an unknown assassin and not a single pin was stolen in his house. So, you can see that this was a pure crime that has to be fully investigated for us to know the root causes and why.”
The Governor assured the family of the deceased and citizens of the State that security agents are working hard to unravel the root cause of the murder.
- Gov. Masari says Political violence scares good people from leadership positions
- Masari’s Chief of staff disowns 2023 campaign posters, says it is blackmail
- Religious group launches nationwide tree planting in Katsina
“When we had a comparative analysis before the issuance of the security containment order, what we saw in three months when we compared, was a drastic drop of over 100 per cent in terms of the rate of kidnappings, killings and their associated crimes with banditry. So, the incident we had last week had nothing to do with banditry,” he stressed.
Speaking on the need for collaboration among States in the Northwest, Masari said, “I think what is most important for us to succeed in fighting these bandits is for all of us the States, especially the North-western States, to take the pains and work together to make sure that we block all the loopholes
“But if one State has a policy and another has a different one, certainly they (Bandits) will always be moving from one State to another.
“Luckily enough, we are already working closely with States that border us, like Nasarawa and Niger, to bring the problem to a manageable and tolerable level.”
Masari added that there has been considerable improvement in Katsina state security because of the measures put in place by security agencies.
“I think if we are talking about banditry, certainly we have seen some improvement; we cannot say normalcy has returned but there is an improvement,” he said.
