Almost 2,000 repentant youths who terrorised Gusau, Zamfara, handed over 190 locally made rifles and shotguns to Gov. Bello Matawalle at the government house, Gusau.
The Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the governor on Media, Mr Zailani Bappa, disclosed this yesterday. Bappa said the youths were led to the government house by the Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Security, Abubakar Dauran.
He said Dauran was convinced that the youths had genuinely repented. According to him, Dauran said in the recent past, major cities of the state, especially Gusau were highly unsafe as banditry, youth restiveness and other crimes were the order of the day.
The governor’s aide, however, expressed happiness that the youths were towing the line of the repentant bandits and also repenting from their bad ways.
Leader of the repentant youths popularly known as Sani Shaidan, said that they were encouraged by what the state government did, alleging that the immediate past administration in the state did not care about their welfare. He said they were convinced that the present administration genuinely intended to address the ills in the state, hence their resolve to allow peace to reign.
Responding, Matawalle assured the repentant youths of the state government’s earlier commitment to finding lasting solutions to their plights. The governor urged them to form committees that would monitor those youths who refused to accept the peace initiatives. He donated five Peugeot cars for the monitoring of youths within the metropolis.
Meanwhile, the state house of assembly has confirmed the 19 commissioner-nominees earlier sent to it by Matawalle. The assembly also confirmed 28 nominees as special advisers to the Governor at a screening exercise during plenary.
Gov. Matawalle had on Tuesday sent the list of the commissioner-nominees and Special Advisers to the state’s house of assembly for screening and confirmation.
NAN further reports that the lawmakers unanimously considered and approved the nominees as members of the state executive council.
The Speaker of the House, Alhaji Nasiru Magarya, who presided over the exercise, said the lawmakers confirmed the nominees as they were impressed at the screening.
NAN also reports that one of the commissioners-nominee, Alhaji Jamilu Aliyu and a Special Adviser-nominee, Lukman Bisalla Majidadi were conspicuously absent during the screening exercise.