Buhari’s wife tasks security agencies on insecurity in Katsina

PDP decries killings, challenges APC over 2019 poll ‘mercenaries’

President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha, has called on security agencies to redouble efforts and end the killings and related atrocities in Katsina State.

Mrs. Buhari, who was speaking in Daura at the weekend, said the prolonged security challenge brought about by bandits in the state had claimed so many lives and rendered many homeless.

While commiserating with those that lost their loved ones, homes and other belongings to banditry, she called on them to be brave in handling the tragedy. She assured them that efforts were being made to arrest the killings, rape, animal rustling, and abductions in the state.

According to the statement by the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Rabi’a Muhammad, the first lady made the call when she donated relief materials to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Batsari Council.

The commissioner donated the commodities on behalf of the first lady to would meet the needs of the people living in the camp. “The first lady also sympathised with those who lost their loved ones to the recent attacks on some communities in the area, and prayed to God to grant the deceased eternal rest,” the commissioner stated, adding that the donation was a continued commitment of the first lady in complementing government’s efforts through her pet project, Future Assured Programme, in response to the victims of the crisis.

MEANWHILE, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has decried the failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to contain the incessant killings of vulnerable Nigerians by bandits in Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Borno, Kaduna, Kogi, Taraba and other parts of the country.

The party expressed great hurt by “the horror, anguish, torture and cruelty our compatriots are facing in the hands of bandits, insurgents and kidnappers, following the failure of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration to get its acts together, tighten our security architecture and secure our nation, despite the huge resources it claimed to have spent.”

In a statement yesterday, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, invited Nigerians to note that the APC had failed to account for the whereabouts of the political mercenaries “it imported into our country from neighbouring countries, particularly from Chad and Niger Republic, to participate in its campaigns during the build-up to the 2019 general elections.”

The PDP recalled that it had cautioned on the risk of importing unscreened aliens by the APC to be involved in its presidential election campaign rallies.

“Our party had warned that such elements could be used to unleash violence, including banditry, against Nigerians. The escalation of banditry since the 2019 elections, therefore, calls for a deep soul-searching by the APC and its leaders.”