LAST week, in yet another orgy of violence, bandits reportedly unleashed terror on Zamfara State, killing 31 persons in cold blood. On the same day, they killed two health workers at Makosa village in the Zurmi Local Government Area of the state. The bandits, brandishing AK-47 rifles, arrived at the village in the early hours of the fateful day on motorbikes and started shooting sporadically. In our view, the bandits’ reign of terror has persisted in Zamfara State only because there is no governance system in place to tame their excesses. Were Zamfara policed the way states are policed in functional democracies and federations, the kind of lawlessness exhibited by the Zamfara bandits would have been curbed substantially if not eliminated outright.

Source: Nigerian Tribune January 24, 2020 03:32 UTC