Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai has vowed that all those who looted warehouses in the state about a week ago will be arrested to face the wrath of the law.
El-Rufai said the palliatives looted belonged to the needy and vulnerable in the society, which had earlier been distributed to various local government areas in the State, “for safe keep awaiting another round of distribution to the needy.”
He said “these looters are criminals, they are thieves who looted things that belonged to the needy and vulnerable in the society”. The governor spoke on Friday at the sensitization of youth leaders from the 23 local government areas of the State about insecurity in Kaduna.
The event which took place at the auditorium of the Kaduna State University ( KASU) was attended by Minister of Environment, Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar, the state deputy governor and some members of the State Executive Council. El-Rufai who was not in the country during the EndSARS protest expressed sadness over attack and killings of some policemen across the country, saying, “when I watched a video of police being killed I felt sad”.
He condemned the protest against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), saying, “it is a unit of the police force which may have bad eggs like any other organizations, therefore it is wrong to attack all the police because of few bad eggs in the police. The best way out of this situation is to identify the bad eggs and punish them accordingly, but not to call for the entire dissolution of SARS”.
Speaking further on the looted palliatives, El-Rufai said, “We will pick the criminals one by one, we know where they are, we will send them to prison, they are criminals. They stole chairs, mattresses, tables, electronics and so on and so forth”.
He charged the youth leaders to talk to their members to resist the temptation of joining looters, “because we have a security report that these criminals are planning another round of looting, but we will arrest them and send them to prison”.