The Nigerian Hunters and Forest Security Services’ Zamfara State Command asserts that the terrorists ravaging the state require the assistance of others and that conventional security agencies alone cannot contain them.
The Command recalled that the union has been doing everything in its power to restore peace in the state by arresting and handing over criminal elements to the security agencies, and that there are associations in the state that can assist in ending the violence, but that the state government does not support them.
The council pleaded for the support of the government, stating that the government continues to be unsupportive despite its efforts to combat banditry.
Commander Suleiman Lawali Zurmi, who lamented that the Zamfara government has not provided any mobility to assist it, disclosed this during an exclusive interview with DAILY POST in Gusau, the state capital.
“Our efforts are not being recognized by the State government, and we have been doing our best by arresting and handing over some arrested criminal elements to the security agencies.”
He stated that the State House of Assembly had sent a series of letters to the State Governor, asking him to consider the hunter-led efforts to secure the state, but that none of them had any effect.
“At the moment, everything we are doing relies on the individual efforts of our members. He lamented that the command has no official vehicle to operate with and that the State House of Assembly has remained unconcerned, despite the fact that the general public relies heavily on the command. And we have been chasing bandits even to their enclaves with personal vehicles without the support of the State government.
“We are hunters and know the nooks and crannies of the forests where the bandits are operating from. We have been confronting them with our locally fabricated weapons and they are very much afraid of us as hunters,” Zurmi said. He noted that the hunters could be of great assistance to the federal and state governments in the fight against banditry. Zurmi urged the state government to help the hunters in the state track down unrepentant bandits.
