Zamfara banditry: We’ll use kinetic approach -Buratai

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Burata, says the military will continue to engage in kinetic approach in dealing with banditry in Zamfara State while supporting non-kinetic approach of the state government.

He said this when he paid a courtesy visit to Governor Bello Matawalle at the Government House in Gusau on Monday.

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While commending the peace effort of the government, he reiterated the commitment of the Nigerian army to dealing decisively with the menace of banditry in the northwest and parts of North Central.

According to him, there is a need to achieve the major success and have the upper hand so that those that are causing the trouble will understand the seriousness of the government and all the state agencies

He called for the support of the civilian populace in the area of intelligence and information from the grassroots towards the planning of operations diligently and successfully.

“We appreciate you for your non-kinetic approach but at the same time, we will still continue with the kinetic approach to be able to achieve the desired results quickly.

“In doing that, we’ve flagged off today, the Exercise Sahel Sanity which is aimed at carrying out operations across the northwest and parts of north-central which include Kaduna and Niger states.

“This is to rid this part of the country of the marauding bandits and other criminal elements and this I assure you God’s willing, we’ll achieve that within a very short time’’ he said.

Responding, Matawalle said that his peace effort had yielded positive results, adding that over 1,000 kidnapped victims had been released from bandits’ captivity since the inception of his administration.

He said that his administration had also achieved disarmament of a number of repentant bandits, saying that more were surrendering on a regular basis.

He said that the vast nature of the state required more deployment of security personnel to the state, adding that the government was ready to support the security agencies with logistics. (NAN)