Kankara: PDP gov linked to banditry fires back at APC

Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle has responded to the allegations the APC made days ago that a northwestern governor is the mainstay of banditry and killing across the region.

Tweeting Sunday night, Matawalle wrote, “I find it insulting that the APC is accusing me of sponsoring bandits in my own state. We all are living witnesses to the fact that during APC’s tenure, Zamfara State was adjudged as a colony of banditry in the whole world.

“We are not claiming that insecurity has totally been eliminated in Zamfara but it is on record that terror attacks have reduced drastically in the state in less than two years than APC’s unfortunate eight years when people were running away from the state.

“This is a malicious calumny by the ruling party, releasing a statement as sensitive as that, knowing fully how miserable they governed the state for the past years. Their statement is not only laughable but shows the type of leadership they have.”

The APC had lashed out at the PDP organizing protests after 344 schoolchildren, kidnapped at Kankara, Katsina over a week ago, were rescued Friday night.

The APC, through its acting deputy publicity secretary, Yekini Nabena, challenged security agencies to investigate an intelligence report linking a North-west governor it did not name to the heightened cases of banditry, abductions and other violent crimes in the zone.

But the PDP governor said the state was “a colony of banditry in the whole world” during the APC administration of his predecessor, Abdul’aziz Yari.

Matawalle, however, said his administration has stemmed the wave of insecurity in the state.

The students were herded out of their school Dec 12 , and led through the forest to Tsafe, Zamfara, where the military claimed it rescued them.