From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
The Kebbi State Deputy Governor, Col. Samaila Yombe Dabai (rtd) has vowed to fish out criminals elements among the ‘Yan Sakai’ Volunteer Vigilante group in Zuru Emirate area of the state who were involving in extra judiciary killings and obstructions of Courts processes.
Dabai, who stated this while speaking with newsmen Birnin Kebbi on his tour to few areas in the Emirate which were hot spots of banditry attacks , said that they have discovered that criminals were disguising as ‘Yan Sakai’ to perpetrate evils and tarnish the image of good people of the area.
According to him, “If you recall, we share the same border with Zamfara and over the years Zamfara has faced with series of banditry, kidnapping, cattle rustling and the rest of all of them. That never manifested itself in our area. But recent years have shown that there is spit over of these incidents crimes wave into Zuru land specifically Bena area, Manci and Fakai. These are areas that have boundaries with Sokoto and Zamfara. Its continue up to the extent that a whole village is been attacks, a whole village is been driven away and properties carted away.
“ Not only driven, they killed people just like a recent village I visited. It is unfortunate that such incident happen. And because of these continuous unfortunate situation, and lean nature of the security agents. Because the security agents, especially the Soldiers, they have spread over the states. There is no state you will not find soldiers fighting crimes, fighting armed banditry. So, we not left behind, as a result, we have a backup of the military.
“ But limited as they are ,they are doing a wonderful job. But because of the continuous of these attacks, the native decided that, look, let us help ourselves by coming together, armed ourselves and defend our areas. And they nicked name themselves as Yan-Sakai meaning, voluntary organization to help themselves. And somehow, they are the people that are subsidizing the security.
“Unfortunately, unfortunately I say again, some scrupulous people, criminals, wears the uniforms of Yan-Sakai to commit atrocities and soon. They will kidnap an individual from Zuru, take him away for ransom. They are getting involved judging cases up till the extent of harassing Judges and lawyers. These people are not Yan- Sakai, they are criminals and we cannot tolerate that. We would not tolerate that”.
The Deptuty Governor who apologize to the Chief Judge of Kebbi state over the incident, disclosed that they have concluded and designed a military strategy to flush out those behind the criminalities.