How I tackled insecurity in Kaduna since 2023 — Gov Sani

The Governor of Kaduna, Senator Uba Sani, has revealed the three measures he undertook to make Kaduna state experience improved security since he assumed office in May 2023.

He said the imbalance in development, bad politics of religious and ethnic tendencies, polarized the state and paved the way for anti-societal elements to penetrate the hospitable state and wreak havoc on the state.

The Kaduna governor, who was guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, also said the abundant evidence of infrastructure in the Northwest region has attracted regional support for Tinubu to come in 2027.

According to him, “60 to 65 percent of our people are financially excluded, many of these people are in the northern part of Nigeria, particularly in the northwest. And because of this problem of insecurity, which is largely an economic issue breeding poverty and unemployment, that becomes the reason why our people can easily be recruited by these bandits.

Uba said while the measure to stamp insecurity out of Kaduna was an ongoing process, it was important to note that though there may be pockets of security challenges, they have significantly dropped.

The Governor said this was because he did not come to play the politics of religion or ethnicity, but of fair and equitable distribution of the public resources amongst the people.

His words: “When I was elected on May 29th, I gathered everyone after we left the stadium. I made it clear to everyone in Kaduna, I will not look at Kaduna concerning anything to do with religious affiliation, political affiliation, or ethnic affiliation.

“As a leader, I was elected to be fair to everyone, irrespective of party affiliation, religion, or ethnicity. And again, you see, after the election, we sat down with some of the people close to me. And I made it clear to all of them that yes, I lost the election in Southern Kaduna because many local governments in Kaduna voted for PDP, but a few also voted for APC, but still, we won the election.

“So I told everyone that it is all about governance, it is not about politics anymore, and we wanted to develop every part of Kaduna. I will be fair to everyone.”

According to him, the level of government intervention in different parts of the state targeted at closing the gap of economic challenges among the people has given the people a sense of belonging in the state.

“The symptoms and drivers of this instability, why is it that we are not really winning a lot of battles when it comes to the issue of fighting banditry? I made it clear that we cannot win it through kinetic approach, nor through giving people these palliatives. We must look at the drivers and symptoms. What are these drivers and symptoms?

“We have to address the gap in terms of prosperity between our people who are living in the urban area and those in the rural areas. Now, what I did was very simple. We sat down, we looked at the infrastructure deficit. And I look at Southern Kaduna.

“I look at all the parts of Kaduna. For instance, I was a senator representing Kaduna Central. Kaduna Central benefited tremendously more than any other zone because they are in the center.

“But the Southern part of Kaduna, I can tell you here, that I realised there were a lot of social deficits. And I look at it critically. And I made it clear to everyone, particularly some of my political associates, that we would look at local governments that have issues of infrastructure and focus on them.

“No politics, no religion, it’s about governance. Today, I am happy that we are taking development to every part of Kaduna.

“In the Southern part of Kaduna, we are constructing roads to the Southern part of Kaduna, Northern part of Kaduna and Central and Central part of Kaduna. But the fact of the matter is, we carry everyone along.

“It’s simply because we are now making sure that everyone is carried along. We made it clear to everyone. I said that I’m not a governor for any religion, I’m a governor for everyone who belongs here in Kaduna.

“Not only that, another thing we did that was very important we sat down with the stakeholders, our traditional institution, and our religious leaders. We made sure that we carried them along. They also help us in making sure that they reach out to our communities. Sending this message at the regular meetings to our traditional rulers and religious leaders.

“So we are on the same page with our leaders, traditional rulers. I attend most of these activities, both in the mosques and in the church.

“The governor said he is reducing the army of children susceptible to recruitment by the bandits in Kaduna, as the very concerning number of out-of-school children in the state was very disturbing and needed urgent measures to address the issue.

“There was the issue of out-of-school children. When I came in as the governor of Kaduna state, I can tell you over 350,000 of our people were out of school when we came in. Today, we are addressing the problem gradually.

“When I sat down two months ago with the vice president of the World Bank, we looked at the UNICEF statistics, and I can tell you out of the 18.2 million of out-of-school children, seven years ago or six years ago, when you look at the figures, they are not as much as 18.2 million as of today. North was responsible for about 70 percent. Today, the figure is different.

“From 2023, I can tell you that the figure was about 80 percent of out-of-school children were domiciled in Northern Nigeria. That is the reason why when I look at the figure today, I have seen improvement. I have considered that we’re heading in the right direction because we are addressing the problem gradually.

“But this problem did not start two years ago. It started many years back because we were docile.”

He said the regional support for President Tinubu was because all the indices for development of human capital and infrastructure are on the increase, and the region needs to stand by the driver of this progress in roads.

“I can tell you also that, yes, we are happy because of the infrastructural intervention we are having here in the North West.

“If you look at it critically, you will agree with me that a lot of intervention is going on in North Western Nigeria. And simply because we are determined to push Mr. President to address most of these issues that affect our people. We cannot do it if we don’t sit down as a team collectively.”

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