Zamfara Conflict, Beyond The Capacity Of The Present Govt’ – Senator Dansadau
The Oasis Reporters
December 27, 2018
The hitherto fearful Zamfara State Senator, Alh. Dansadau who would only mention the humanitarian crisis that has engulfed his North Western state only in Senate committee rooms has come out of the shadows to boldly address a Press Conference on the recurring security nightmare that has led to huge massacres in his native state.
Only last year, it took the bold initiative of Bayelsa State Senator, Ben Murray Bruce to drive the matter from the Senate committee rooms to the floor of the whole house.
Now in a no holds barred Press conference exclusively in Hausa, the native has ex-rayed a greater part of the problem for the knowledge of the general public. Despite what apologists of the President of the country would say that
“the worrisome situation is a seeming determination to distract President Buhari’s administration or push it into decisions that may not be in the best interest of citizens through orchestrated campaigns of calumny against the President viz-a-viz the Zamfara conflict” as one of them wrote recently on his Facebook page, It is now a popular opinion that President Buhari is either “doing nothing” or doing very little and the little being done is almost ineffectual to rescue Zamfara State from banditry”.
Senator Dansadau boldly asserted that the crisis is beyond the capacity of Abdullazeez Yari, the lameduct governor of the state, and the Senator demands that a State of Emergency be declared in Zamfara State.
The minister representing Zamfara State in the Federal cabinet, is no ordinary one. He is a “big” Minister, actually a retired army General who is the nation’s Defense Minister. And a prince of an Emirate in Zamfara.
Yet, he has evacuated all members of his extended family from the killing fields of Zamfara to safety in other climes. The people are now left at the execution mercies of terrorists and bandits.
According to an apologist, he admitted that there’s no “gainsaying the fact that Zamfara State is now a serious conflict situation. Stories of deadly attacks on defenceless citizens are as worrisome as they should be”.
Senator Dansadau said that on many occasions, he had written letters to the Presidency through the Secretary to the Federal government, Mr. Boss Mustapha, and not even a response was given. His access to see some agencies of government have been blocked.
Going down memory lane as some apologists of the President would like to say that the Zamfara security crisis is an inherited one, Senator Dansadau agrees that the problem has been a long standing one.
But during the regime of former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, not once, twice or thrice, each time he called the then President, he would order the National Emergency Management Authority, NEMA to overwhelm them with critical relief materials. Troops too, would be sent. Another reality is that ex- President Jonathan is from the South south of the country. But the current President, Muhammadu Buhari is from the neighbouring Katsina state.
Just as hunger and starvation has become the lot of the vast citizenry, even soldiers sent to quell the crisis in the beleaguered state often have no food. Poor villagers who can barely feed themselves have to first find food for the hungry soldiers.
Senator Dansadau was critically and brutally frank in his exposé.
Hear an apologist: “People (some mischievously and some innocently ignorant) go about these debates in total disregard to what President Buhari inherited and what is at his disposal to fight the war. I consider it a duty to make some clarifications.
To begin, the situation in Zamfara is an inherited situation. It’s not as if Zamfara was safe before Buhari came in. Zamfara has always been under siege from bandits in the last 6 years or so. We may recall that on a single night in 2014, just before elections, close to 140 people were killed in Faskari LGA of Katsina State bordering Zamfara State. This unfortunate event happened while Jonathan and Shema where dancing and partying the night away in Government House Katsina. Parts of Katsina State were also under siege. I can recall an incident when bandits, bolder than they are today, attacked a village in the midst of wedding celebrations. They kidnapped the bride and taxed the villagers either 10,000 per head for her release. These killings were neither new nor any less frequent or less brutal.
A friend opined that back in 2014 down, people were so overwhelmed by Boko Haram and its looming invasion of the Northwest that Zamfara was a non issue. Ask people of Danmusa, Safana and neighbouring LGA’s of Katsina State how the situation was before and how it is today to know things were just as bad if not worse before the Buhari presidency. This is not an attempt to compare the two situations just to give this administration a pass mark”.
Senator Dansadau has a ready made answer to the above assertion: Assuming but not admitting that the situation was that bad in the past, why then did the nation choose Muhammadu Buhari as president, a retired army Major General for that matter ?
Was it not in the belief that he would lead from the front and produce results rather than excuses?
What pass mark can be given to a retired general when people are still dying in large numbers and nothing seems to be done, or what is being done is ineffectual, too little?