The former Chairman of the Committee on Prosecution of Bandits Related Offences, Sani Shinkafi, says the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) should stop posting corps members to some states bedeviled by bandit attacks.
Shinkafi’s recommendation comes over two weeks after armed bandits abducted eight NYSC members along a highway in Zamfara State, later demanding N4 million in ransoms for at least one of the victims.
On Monday, he said, “I’m calling on the leadership of NYSC to stop posting youth corps members to Sokoto, Kebbi, and even Zamfara.”
He criticised the governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal’s refusal to engage in a “peace dialogue” with repentant bandits, arguing that the stance taken by the administration of Lawal’s predecessor, Bello Matawalle, to dialogue with the terrorists was beneficial to securing the release of abductees in Zamfara.
“If this type of situation happens, we use to reach out to these repented bandits and they would work with security agencies to either rescue them or collect them from their captors without paying any ransom.
“But this administration, I am telling you, many people were killed, many people were kidnapped. More than 2,000 people were killed and kidnapped. No place in the 14 local governments of Zamfara is safe,” he said.
