Katsina Embraces Self-defence Strategy against Bandits, Promises to Support Communities to Defend Themselves

*Says ransom payment doesn’t guarantee safety of victims

Francis Sardauna in Katsina

Worried at the rate residents of his state were dying in “a humiliating manner,” Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State has urged the communities to defend themselves against bandits, promising that his administration will support terrorised communities to confront invading bandits, kidnappers, and other criminals.
Speaking at an event organised for the 2025 Citizens’ Budget Participation Process and the launching of the state’s Community Development Programmes, Governor Radda discouraged the families of kidnap victims from paying the ransom, stressing that ransom payment does not even prevent a hostage from being killed by abductors.

According to him, bandits had sometimes collected ransom and still killed their victims.
The governor said it was unhelpful for communities to depend solely on security agencies due to the remoteness of their locations.
“We have come up with an initiative that for any community ready to defend itself, we will give them necessary support and training to engage criminals before the arrival of the security agents,” Radda said.

“I went to a village, Tsamiyar-jino, where it took me two hours inside a ‘Jeep’ before I reached the village from the main road.
“So, if bandits attack such areas, from the time you inform the security agents, it will take them over two hours before they can respond to the distress call.
“By then, whatever is going to happen will have happened – they will have killed people and kidnapped others,” Radda added.

Radda also lamented the inadequate number of security agents to provide security to all the communities in the state.
“I have said it several times, that the security agents cannot do this work alone. We didn’t even have enough of them.
The governor expressed worry over the incessant killings in the state, stressing the need for self-defence.
He also said that payment of ransom does not guarantee the safety of kidnap victims.
“I am surprised at the way we are dying in such a humiliating manner. We were told that anyone who died in defence of his family would enter paradise.
“You see five criminals attacking a community of 2,000 to 3,000 people, rape daughters, women and abducting others without any confrontation from the people of that community.

“If there are 100 youths in the community who confront them, they will not shoot for more than three times without being captured with bare hands.
“Paying ransom doesn’t even prevent a hostage from being killed by abductors; sometimes they collect the money and kill the victim,” he lamented.
Radda lamented the collaboration between the criminals and the communities.
“There was a representative of the village head who collected N700,000 from bandits and allowed them to enter his area and killed about 30 people,” he said.
“There were women arrested – a teacher serving as their informant; in fact, almost all the segments of people involved in this act,” he added.
The governor revealed that his administration had created a Community Security Watch Corps and recruited youth from the front-line local governments.
“We trained them and attached them with the police and the army to work in synergy after providing them rifles, bulletproof vests, umbrellas, three sets of uniforms and shoes, among others,” he said.

Radda added that the government provided them with 700 motorcycles, 65 Hilux cars, and 10 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC), in addition to rehabilitating others that belonged to the police.
“We pay N3 million for fuelling and maintenance of those vehicles to front-line local governments, N1.5 million for vulnerable local governments, and N750,000 for the remaining LGAs.

“We also purchased surveillance gadgets that you cannot find anywhere in the country. Our own is 5G and not the normal 3G,” the governor said.
He, therefore, urged the people to intensify efforts to provide information to the security agents for their security and safety.
Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja, had opposed the call for arming of citizens in the wake of an attack that claimed the lives of 195 persons in Plateau State in 2023.
 “I do not support that. I think that is a call for anarchy,” Lagbaja said on Channels TV in December 2023, insisting that the Nigerian Army can defend the country and that there is no need for self-defence,” he reportedly said.