Insecurity: Ganduje Reacts To Attempt On Ortom’s Life

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has reacted to the assassination attempt on his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom.

Recall that armed herdsmen attacked the governor’s convoy while on a visit to a farm on Saturday at Tyo Mu community along Makurdi-Gboko road.

While speaking with newsmen after the incident, Ortom narrated that the gunmen, numbering about 15, trailed him and his team to a riverbank when he was on foot before launching the attack.

However, a shadowy group, the Fulani Nationality Movement has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Benue governor.

Speaking with State House correspondents in Abuja on Monday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, Ganduje condemned the attack on the governor.

He expressed worry that criminals could lay siege to a governor, wondering what the fate of the ordinary citizen, who does not enjoy the sort of security protection of governors.

Ganduje said the recent appointment of new service chiefs will bring an end to insecurity in the country, noting that President Buhari had shown seriousness in stamping out the menace.

“I think it’s unfortunate, but I believe with the appointment of new service chiefs, new strategy will be developed and I think Mr. President has always been serious on this issue, but is rather unfortunate.

“Not only governors being attacked, anybody who is attacked in Nigeria, one should be worried because life is life. Certainly, we’re worried because a governor is supposed to have some security with him, let alone of an ordinary man who has no security.

“So you can see how serious the situation is. It’s unfortunate, but we believe will come over it”, he said.

The governor noted that Kano remains Nigeria’s safest state in the country because of the measures taken by its government to safeguard it.

He said: “All what I know as of today is that Kano is the most peaceful state in the federation and this is not by chance, there must be some security measures that we have taken, like full cooperation among the security agencies in Kano State. We introduced the command and control centre; the CCTV where we are viewing the whole Metropolitan Kano, we have the most powerful tracker vehicle, equipment in Kano.

“Falgore Forest where bandits usually inhabit, we said no, not in Kano State. We established a military training ground in Falgore Forest and therefore bandits cannot inhabit it. Our border with Kaduna, we have a forest and where we are establishing ruga programme, we discussed with nomadic Fulani, they agreed to be settled there. In fact, other Fulani are even coming.

“In conjunction with Islamic Bank, we’re building dam, artificial insemination centre, veterinary clinic, school for their children and all what it takes to form a settlement, we’re doing that. “

“We also established a security training institute where we are training our young men and women for community policing, even yesterday, I graduated graduated 200, whilwy 500 are under training there, with the advice of the security agencies in Kano.

“So all these efforts are in order to keep Kano in the peace, apart from other policies in education, free and compulsory education, reforming the Almajiri system, what we have done to the health sector, and so many other things. But this one is left for the people to say”, he said.