Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has stated that banditry and insurgency are more serious in the NorthWest than in the North-East, saying the situation presented a clear danger to the 2023 elections and census if not nipped in the bud now.
Malam El-Rufai said the establishment of the NorthWest Theater Command was to counter insurgency across the affected states and enhance the coordination of the resources of the armed forces, the police, the State Security Service (SSS), the respective state vigilance services, hunters, and other local volunteers to fight the insurgents.
The governor, in an address at the presentation of the state’s security reports for the second and third quarters of 2022, held at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna, on Friday, gave the assurance that the state government would continue to do everything to enhance security.
He expressed delight at the success of the security operation launched in 2015-2016 as collaboration between the states in the area and the Federal Government.
Malam El-Rufai said the initial success of the operation recorded in the KamukuKuyambana forest ranges was not consolidated through continuous operations which enabled the criminal elements to recover, regroup and resume their activities.
The governor stated that the lesson and the nature of the cross-state operations of the criminals informed the view of the Kaduna State government that a theatre command similar to the one in the North-East was required.
He added that effective security operations in the seven states of the North-West and Niger State, which have continuous and contiguous forest ranges, required this approach.
“We have invested considerable resources and energy in managing security to the extent that the constitution permits. Our interventions since 2015 have included supporting the federal security agencies deployed in our state with vehicles and other logistics, collaborating with other frontline states to fund military operations in the 2015–2016 period, and investments in security infrastructure and technology.
“The lessons learned in the 2016-2019 period informed our decision to establish the first sub-national Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs at the beginning of our second term in 2019,” the governor said.