About 3,000 persons were killed in Zamfara State by bandits in the last two years, with over N1.2 billion paid as ransom to secure the release of residents abducted during the period.

This was disclosed by a former Senator Sa’idu Dansadau during a press conference in Abuja yesterday. He said the killings took place between June 2016 and June 2018.

He said 682 villages and towns were sacked by the bandits causing residents to flee to neighbouring states of Katsina and Kebbi. The former lawmaker said 2,706 farms were also destroyed, just as 13,838 cattle and 11,088 sheep and goats were looted.

Reeling out the statistics of the banditry, Dansadau said of the 682 villages and towns destroyed and deserted, residents were only able to return to 374 of them because of the intensity of the crimes. He said the bandits during the period under review stole motorcycles totalling 2,244.

Dansadau, who urged President Muhammadu Buhari to come to the aid of the residents of the state, said he arrived at these figures by multiplying the figures obtained from Dansadau state constituency by 22 other constituencies affected by banditry.

He said of the 25 state constituencies in Zamfara, only three had not suffered from similar or worse losses occasioned by the activities of the bandits.

He said the military operation in Zamfara State is not yielding result because a section of the most senior functionaries of the Abdulaziz Yari-led government are “informants of the criminals.” Dansadau didn’t provide any evidence to back up this claim.

He said the fact that Governor Yari had since resigned as chief security officer of the state “depicts his incapacity, unsuitability, and impropriety to continue to function as governor and expect people of Zamfara State to be safe from the criminalities of these terrorists.”

Reacting to Dansadau’s comments last night by telephone, Governor Yari’s special adviser on public enlightenment, media, and communication, Malam Ibrahim Dosara, said: “the governor won’t join issues with him (Dansadau).”

He said already the governor has set up “a committee of elders to fish out anybody involved in banditry in whatever capacity - be it informant or bandit. It is good for Dansadau to go back to his emirate and give his advice.”

•Excerpted from Daily Trust report