Sokoto State Government has assured residents of the state not to wait for bandits attack before responding but rather reaffirmed its commitment to tackle banditry and take the attacks to their hideouts.
The acting chairman of the state community guard corps, Yushau Kebbe, stated this while speaking with newsmen in the state .
He said to achieve this feat, the state government through the newly established state community guard corps, has began the process of recruiting about 2,000 persons into the corps to assist the existing federal security agencies in the state.
According to Kebbe, “the recruitment exercise has commence in earnest, as at today the final screening is in progress and we hope within the next four days we would have finished the final screening and once the screening is over those who are successful will going into training for about two months and they will be out hopefully with adequate training to enable them carry weapons in protecting our different communities.
“Also, according to the statement of the governor while signing the bill, this community guard corps will not operate as alternative to the existing federal security architecture in the state, they are just complimentary.
“Their efforts in whatever it’s going to be based on the direction and spearheading of the existing security architecture especially that of the military which is directly involved in the insurgency situation.
“Whenever they are going to work, it is going to be along with the military, Police or rather the joint task force that is already working on this insecurity in the state.
“Many of the recruited persons interestingly as I discovered during my local government tours are already in this local Vigilante of which the military are making use of them before now in their operations. Some of them already have the local knowledge of the environment where these bandits operate, so you will find out that the military always work with them when they were going out.
“So, it is not a new thing, the only thing government is doing now is to formalize that relationship and properly given them higher weapons better than dane guns they were using before.”
He further explained that the other difference is to have an enabling law that will make their operations have legal backing, because whatever they will do has to be guided by law.
“Going forward, we expect to see that the security challenges in the state is being tackled and as we have started with the existing security architecture in the state (Federal Government security agencies), we are not waiting for Bandits to attack before we respond but now chasing them into their hideouts.
“So this is a new development in the area of insecurity but we have to accept the fact that the number of security operatives that we have currently is not enough to confront these insecurity and every challenge that may arise which are part of the reason we muted this idea of having about 2,000 additional hands, well equipped and trained will really make a difference.
“This is because, the security operators will now able to confront the challenges head-on with more hands and resources,” he added.
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