Zamfara state police command has deployed 877 well-armed personnel in 10 strategic communities across the state, the state commissioner of police Usman Nagogo has disclosed on Thursday.
He said there are also 100 special forces and the areas where they were stationed, hosted many villages, and also provide a blockade on the most important routes of the armed bandits and cattle rustlers.
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The state police boss further explained that the posted personnel are being paid their allowances and provided feeding and any other entitlement by the state government.
Nagogo insisted that the arrest of Habu Dantabawa was in order and it was carried out based on credible intelligence that some individuals were holding meetings with repentant bandits in order to entice them with money.
“After the arrest, some individuals were saying that we are biased but let me remind those making such baseless allegations. I served as Chairman of the State Disarmament Committee during the previous administration. There was a time I went and met the slain cattle rustling kingpin Buharin Daji inside the forest”
“I collected sixteen rifles from him and this apart from the fact that I spearheaded the collection of many guns from armed men at that time. To them, I was a hero at that time, but now I became villain in their thinking because I’m serving in a different government. The success recorded at that was what made the Force headquarters to post me to the state again,” Nagogo said.
“No responsible security architecture will fold its arms and wait until a carnage is meted to the citizen of the state before they act. Thus, the arrest of Alhaji Habu Moh’d Dantabawa and 17 others was based on intelligent driven and proactive measures taken by the Police to curtail any act of banditry and related criminality in the state,” he warned.
“Some miscreants attempted to invade the command presumably to destroy any evidence that is likely to influence the outcome of investigation. This was also done to test the patience and resolve of the Police in handling matters bothering on security and fundamental human rights of the citizens,” he added.
He then warned that any attempt to display that “any kind of uncivilized behaviour in the Police Headquarters or anywhere in the state would be dealt with squarely according to the law of the land.”