Some traditional rulers are aiding bandits in Katsina State, a presidential media aide, Malam Garba Shehu, has claimed.
Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Monday, Shehu said the traditional rulers are helping gunmen to escape when security agencies attack.
Bandits have been on rampage in Katsina in particular in the last one week, killing close to 100 as they attacked villages.
And Shehu is alleging that there are people who are benefiting from the attacks.
“It is not that we are making direct accusations on anyone but it is also true that even in the president’s native state of Katsina, some traditional rulers have been found complicit in collaboration with the bandits to harm their own people,” he said.
“In neighbouring Zamfara, emirs and district heads, quite a number of them have been swept out of office.
“The thing is there are beneficiaries of whatever rotten system you have.
“At some point, the Nigerian Air Force had to put a number of aircraft in Katsina, they are still there.
“In the early part of that operation attacking Zamfara, which then was the epicentre, they realised that once aircraft took off from Katsina airport, before it got to Zamfara for operation, telephone calls would have been made and targets would have disappeared.
“In the end, we were forced to be flying from distant places like Kaduna and Kano in order to undertake operations in Zamfara.”
Shehu urged all and sundry to join hands to address the menace through provision of timely information about the activities of the killer bandits, saying: “All of us as citizens have a duty to the nation to provide information to our armed forces.”
Katsina state has been in the eyes of the storm recently due to frequent attacks of the bandits.
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