Senator Shehu Sani on Tuesday lamented that bandits terrorising North-West have become a state within a state in Nigeria.
He regretted that the terrorists have allegedly established a governance structure in the North-West, saying that they do not kidnap and extort money from people but currently install traditional and religious leaders in the embattled region.
Sani, Kaduna Central representative at the 8th Senate, stated this during an interview on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm.
He said, “Virtually now, bandits in the North-West have become a state within a state.
“They have been able to establish a governance structure in the sense that they don’t just kidnap and extort money, it has reached a point where they even install (rulers).
“According to reports, they install traditional rulers and imams.”
The recent branding of bandits as terrorists by the Federal Government has not stopped them from killing and maiming citizens in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna, Katsina, among others with reckless abandon.
Sani, who said that the government needed to do more to stop the criminals, lamented, “This is not just happening in the Mars, Neptune, Jupiter, or Venus; this is happening in the state of the President (Katsina).
“Bandits have become an authority – they kill those they want to kill, they preserve those whom they want to preserve.
“In the states of Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Niger, large squat of land is virtually under the control of these bandits.”