The Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Bello Masari, says kidnapping is attractive in Nigeria because the country is the richest in the Sahel region of Africa.
He stated this on Wednesday during an appearance on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’.
Countries in the Sahel region in Africa include Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan and Eritrea.
According to Masari, a kidnapper would prefer to kidnap victims in Nigeria rather than in Mali because of the higher likelihood of getting ransom in Nigeria.
However, the Chairman of the North-West Governors’ Forum said that security has improved since the All Progressives Congress (APC) came to power in 2015.
Read Also: UK jails 2 ‘Nigerians’ for diverting £489,000 COVID-19 relief fund
He berated the party’s critics for not seeing the glaring “progress” spearheaded by the APC.
“Let’s take 2015, you cannot go to the church, you cannot go to the mosque. If I travel from Kaduna to Abuja, it will take five hours, three of those hours are for checkpoints. I will meet nothing less than 30 checkpoints.
“Is the situation the same today? It is not…Yes, there are kidnappers, there are bandits around but look at the whole world and look at the position of Nigeria in the Sahelian region. Are we not the richest? So, the attraction even for kidnappers to come to Nigeria is there. If you kidnap somebody in Mali, where are you going to get thousands? If I kidnap you in Nigeria, I get millions. So, all of us will have to rise to the occasion,” Masari said.
He threw his weight behind calls for state police in Nigeria, charging the National Assembly to do the needful.
Leave a Reply