Insecurity: Zamfara Governor and the Risk of Granting Amnesty to Bandits
By Ishaku Umar Zamfara State Gov.: Bello Matawalle A world renowned novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian, Herbert George Wells once said “Crime and bad lives are the measures of a State's failure”. This is exactly the event that is playing out in Zamfara, a state in the North West part of Nigeria. Last month, the Governor of the state Bello Matawalle granted amnesty to gang of bandits with notable one being Auwalun Daudawa, a notorious bandit who led scores of his gang members to abduct over 300 schoolboys from Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Kastina state last year. This immediately drew the same public outrage that Nigerians expressed when the Federal Government granted amnesty to 600 “repentant” Boko Haram terrorists, a development civil society organisations accused the government of pampering ruthless and bloodthirsty marauders who were supposed to be punished after committing unprintable crimes in Nigeria’s North-East States,...