Zamfara: Surrender Your Riffle, Get Two Cows – Gov Matawalle Tells Bandits

In a bid to abate the incessant bandits attacks in the state, Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, has called on the criminal bandits ravaging communities in the state to surrender their arms and get two cows as compensation.

Governor Matawalle stated on Thursday as he hosted heads of Intelligence Units of military and police in the state, including the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu and the Director-General, Department of State Security Services (DSS) Yusuf Bichi.

He stated that his decision to compensate the repentant bandits with cows rather than money was to prevent them from “using the money to purchase new weapons”.

“For every rifle submitted by a repentant bandit, there would be compensation of two cows,” said the governor.

“We don’t want to give them money, so they wouldn’t use the money to purchase new weapons.

“We said we will compensate them with cows, they are Fulani and they need the cows to advance their economic interest. 

“We also told the repentant bandits that all “Dabas” (Camps) in the forests should be disbanded. We won’t accept a situation where the bandits will disarm and then go back to the forest and be staying in these camps or Dabas . 

“We asked them to either come to town and be reintegrated into the society or be given economic empowerment where they are, so that they would start a new life.

“Most of them are residing in forests under the shades of trees and inside caves. That is why we came up with RUGA policy to help them.”

The Governor who described Zamfara state as the epicentre of armed banditry in the country, stated that the whole North West and the country in general would be secured if the security operatives can deal with the menace.