Police Affairs Minister: Why Buhari cannot visit families, states affected by banditry

The Minister of Police Affairs, Maigari Dingyadi, has said it is practically impossible for President Muhammadu Buhari to pay condolence visits to states and families affected by insecurity.

There has been an outrage over President Muhammadu Buhari’s absence to states that have recorded major attacks.

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Recently, the president’s presence at a book launch hours after some passengers were burnt alive by bandits in Sokoto, triggered a backlash.

Although Buhari later dispatched a high-powered delegation to Sokoto and Katsina States, where troubling incidents happened, critics still faulted his absence.

Dingyadi said the incessant attacks and killings by the terrorists are too frequent to allow the president visit all the places.

But in an interview with BBC Hausa, the minister said it is not possible for Buhari, as a president to visit all the places due to nature of his job and the occurrences of the attacks.

“These attacks are happening almost on a daily basis and is not possible for the president to visit all the places for condolences. And if you send a delegation, it is as if you were there, is all the same,” he said.

The minister also said that the security operatives in the country are working tirelessly to checkmate the activities of bandits.

In his reaction, a member of the State House of Assembly representing Sabon Birni, Aminu Boza said sending delegation is not what they want from the president, rather they want action that will end activities of banditry in the state.

“Of course president Buhari’s entourage has come to meet us, but that is not what we want. What we want presently is action. In my local government area, hundreds of people have been killed but yet the federal government has not taken any action.”

Attahiru Bafarawa, a former governor of Sokoto, had alleged that the president did not visit the state because the peoples’ lives meant nothing to him.