The National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria Thursday met with President Muhammadu Buhari, and expressed concern over the increasing rate of kidnappings and banditry in some parts of the country.
Addressing State House correspondents, the Etsu Nupe Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar said the traditional rulers harped on the need for the government to urgently address the current security situation in the country.
“We gathered ourselves and feel that yes, there is a need for us to come and let the President know that the situation is telling very hard on our people and there is a need to take urgent and immediate steps to actually check the situation,” he said.
He said the royal fathers have decided to go back to the old tradition of identifying visitors in their domains and also share intelligence with security agencies, so as to ameliorate the situation.
He said the delegation, consisting of selected rulers from the six geo-political zones of the country, offered to help the government address the problem by sharing intelligence with security agencies.
“We commiserate with the President on current happenings, especially banditry activities, killings, kidnapping and destruction of lives and property within the country.
“We discovered that the situation is getting too much on our people, our land, our culture and tradition so we feel as traditional leaders, we are close to our people and we know what is happening to them.
“So, we narrated stories of this banditry and other crimes to the President, as we see it in our domains. We requested that the President consider and put us in a position whereby we can directly or indirectly help the situation so as to curtail these excessive insecurity activities.
“Having given each zone that was represented the opportunity to address the meeting, the President also asked the security agencies to respond and they did so by giving us assurances and explained the plans already on ground to checkmate the challenges.
“He also requested from us to go back to our domains and ensure we garner our traditional and cultural outfits in terms of securing our respective domains, which we have been doing and will continue to do,” he said.
The Etsu Nupe also said the security agencies requested for more personnel and equipment so as to perform to the best of their ability.
“We on our part, we will intensify our grounds to ensure we gather intelligent information that the security agents will use in carrying out their respective duties,” he said.
He said the council of traditional rulers commended the federal government under the leadership of the president for the steps it has taken so far to ameliorate the situation.
