Uba Sani, governor of Kaduna State, on Tuesday, said some former governors in the North-West compromised the security alliance among states in the region by “wining and dining” with bandits and other terrorists.
The states in the region are Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara.
Sani, who made a live appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, claimed some governors took an “extremely wrong” approach in the management of the internal affairs of their states, leading to the current security challenges.
He said, “I remember when the Kaduna State Government and some states within the North-West — and even Niger State, they have borders with us — came together to work out a framework to tackle this issue of insecurity.”
“We had a joint committee, joint funding, working closely with all the security agencies — the army, the air force and the police.
“But unfortunately, somewhere along the line, the alliance broke down when some state governors decided to start engaging the bandits and the terrorists sitting with them, winning and dining with them, compensating them, negotiating with them.”
The governor argued that the approach brought the progress backwards, resulting in a breakdown of the alliance.
The insecurity in the region, according to him, necessitated urgent action from the governors in the region.
“Only two weeks ago, I invited all the governors from the North-West to the Kaduna State Liaison Office in Abuja; I hosted them. Irrespective of party differences, they all came; we sat down together and came out with a kind of policy framework to tackle the problem of insecurity,” Sani said.
“We agreed that we have to have a common approach to the issue and we have to move away from the mistakes made by some previous governors that decided to compromise the operation in the past when they started giving money to the bandits and negotiating with them.”
According to him, the North-West governors are in agreement on the need to tackle the problem and plan to reach out to the Niger State governor, Umar Bago, “because we have a similar problem”.
Sani added that the governors are also planning to meet President Bola Tinubu as a group.
“In one of my conversations with him, he agreed that I should bring the governors from the zone to meet with him on the issue of insecurity,” he said.
“So, we have to work together with a common agenda, plan and operation. That is the only way we can be able to solve the problem.”