Bandits: Former legislator criticises the governor of Bauchi’s proposal to enlist 20,000 youth

Honourable Aminu Tukur, a former member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, has called the state government’s intention to enlist 20,000 teenagers to combat banditry in the state “insincere.”

The Lere village of Tafawa Balewa’s vigilantes and hunters, working with security authorities, killed 67 bamdits and saved 29 victims. Governor Bala Mohammed praised their bravery.

At the Lere village chief’s palace on Monday, Mohammed announced that his administration would hire 20,000 young people who would be educated by police and military troops to work with other security organisations to thwart the alarming influx of bandits into the State.

Tukur responded to the proposal by claiming that it was not sincere to try to enlist thousands of young people to combat bandits and that the government was actively encouraging banditry in various ways.

The former state assembly member who represented the Lere/Bula seat told journalists in Bauchi on Tuesday that it was the “highest peak of insincerity.”

“If he is eager to put an end to banditry, let him begin in his own district and apprehend those who are there who are responsible for breeding new criminals.

“There is one Sarkin Bakam Dukuri, that Chief hunter, who is being praised for going all out to fight bandits, but in reality, he is creating more bandits than he is fighting them,”

The congressman claimed that hunters and vigilantes were arresting innocent and Fulani individuals and demanding large sums of money from them.

“The whole thing just has to do with the fact that they will just go to the market and arrest Fulani youth, take them to Yelwa Duguri, and fine them heavily,” he claimed.

Someone recently claimed that they had taken four of his sons, and that the family had to pay N600,000 for the firstborn, N400,000 for the second and third sons, respectively, and N300,000 for the third son before they could be released.

Whose coffers were those funds transferred to?

Tukur also expressed concern about a detention facility in the state purportedly being administered by someone named Umar Shayi, the governor’s wife’s younger brother.

“He (Shayi) has their own jail facility. According to him, that is where people are arrested and harshly fined before being freed.

What should you do if you are constantly getting fined and imprisoned and have become weak due to the economy? You turn become a criminal.

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“Therefore, the initiative to enlist 20,000 kids to combat crime is untrue.
The governor’s first task is to monitor the actions of the purportedly professional hunters he is referring to.

“They’re all out to rob helpless people of their money. The basic truth is: What connection exists between a regular hunter and Zone 12 Police Command?

This person will be arrested without the immediate DPO that is assigned to him, skipping the DPO’s office, the ACP’s office, and the Commissioner of Police, and going straight to zone 12. All of these arrests were made without the DPO’s consent in the residence area.

“The conventional way is that a DPO of a given area has every right on whatever kind of security situation occurs in his district, not someone who is an unauthorised person in uniform carrying guns and intimidating people,”