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By Nasir Kura
Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara state said on Thursday that he is ready to sacrifice his position should a state of emergency be imposed by President Muhammadu Buhari because of the lingering insecurity situation in the state.
Speaking to State House correspondents after a meeting with the President at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Yari said he was not playing politics with the state of emergency issue.
“We are there as a government because its lives of people we are talking about, if there are no lives we won’t be there, so therefore I did not make that statement out of politics because the way some other people are looking at it politically.
“Since my inception I have never taken insecurity as a political affair, but I look at it as criminality and I approach it in the way that it can be solved, some other politicians have been calling for state of emergency since three years ago, then I said to myself if state of emergency would solve the problem then Yari is ready to go,” he said.
Asked whether he discussed the declaration of emergency with the President, Yari said: “Not at all. You are aware of what is happening in Zamfara State, and some part of the neighboring state on the issue of banditry abduction and insurgency, so it’s important that I come forward to brief Mr President on the situation on ground which I just did.
“We sit down as head of security in the state and all other stakeholders where we review the situation and come with the report that we think will help the security agencies there through Mr. President to strategize so that they can curb the problem. There is no place being occupied by the armed bandits in Zamfara state. They live and operate in the forest.
They strike and run. Most of the camps are known by locals.”
The governor emphasised that the lingering cases of armed banditry in the state would not affect the forthcoming election.
“The situation is calm now as a state we are putting our best to ensure normalcy return, we have started getting results, we believe strongly that with what we have on ground in terms of number of security personnel if they take their job seriously within a short time we will get out of this situation and we hope with encouragement from the president we believe with no time the issues will be a thing of the past,” he said.
