KATSINA — In a major policy intervention aimed at tackling the protracted security crisis in the North-West, Katsina State Governor, Malam Dikko Umaru Radda, has renewed his administration’s passionate appeal to bandits and foreign mercenary elements operating within the vast forest reserves of the region, urging them to immediately surrender their weapons, abandon their criminal enterprises, and return to their respective communities for comprehensive state-sponsored rehabilitation.
The governor gave this directive on Thursday during the high-profile inauguration of a newly constructed 152-unit housing estate designed explicitly for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the Jibia Local Government Area—a border community that has historically borne the brunt of cross-border banditry, cattle rustling, and insurgent activity. The administrative event attracted top government officials, traditional rulers, humanitarian workers, and international development partners.
Addressing the large gathering of traumatized victims, community leaders, and local residents, Governor Radda emphasized that enduring peace, economic stability, and societal growth can only be achieved through lawful means, constitutional order, and honest labor. He lamented that decades of unchecked rural violence, kidnapping for ransom, and arson have brought unimaginable psychological and physical suffering to thousands of innocent families across the length and breadth of Katsina State. The governor declared that despite the state's upgraded kinetic military operations, his administration's doors remain wide open for structured dialogue, genuine repentance, and holistic social reintegration for any non-state actors willing to transform their lives.
"To those our brothers and sisters in the bush or in the forest, to those who still raise weapons against our own people, to those who have taken to banditry, kidnapping, and violence, hear me very well today: there is a better way," Governor Radda stated in a live broadcast from the border community. "The doors for dialogue, repentance, and reintegration remain open to you. Lay down your arms, come back to your families, and come back to your communities. The same houses, the same grants, and the same socio-economic opportunities being delivered here today to these displaced families can be yours tomorrow—not through fear, not through bloodshed, but through peace, good governance, and honest labor. Choose your children over your weapons, choose prosperity over destruction, and choose life."
The governor gave explicit guarantees that every single insurgent who steps forward to embrace the amnesty program in good faith will be provided with adequate security guarantees, psychological counseling, vocational training, and the material resources necessary to rebuild their lives from scratch. He noted that the ongoing insecurity plaguing the North-West geopolitical zone has mutated far beyond conventional security breaches, expanding into a systemic humanitarian crisis that has completely paralyzed rural livelihoods, disrupted agricultural supply chains, depressed local commercial activities, and fractured the centuries-old social stability of the Sahelian region.
According to Governor Radda, the North-West region has faced years of persistent bandit attacks, sophisticated kidnapping syndicates, and violent crimes that have successfully displaced thousands of agrarian families, forcing them into overstretched IDP camps and disrupting farming, which is the economic backbone of the state. He explained that the newly commissioned housing estate represents a tangible, practical component of the state’s multi-layered strategy to restore human dignity, economic independence, and psychological hope to the direct victims of these crises.
Providing further insights into the infrastructural project, Governor Radda explained that the housing scheme, which was initially flagged off in October 2024, was successfully completed through a dynamic, transparent collaboration between the Katsina State Government and several international development partners who specialize in post-conflict reconstruction and displacement management. He revealed that the administration intentionally designed the resettlement package to ensure that it addresses immediate survival needs while laying the foundation for long-term economic self-reliance.
To ensure a seamless transition for the displaced persons into their new permanent homes, the governor announced that each beneficiary family would receive a comprehensive resettlement package going far beyond mere physical accommodation. In addition to the keys to their houses, the state government is distributing high-quality mattresses, mats, heavy blankets, modern cooking stoves, and a standard bag of rice to each household. Furthermore, to stimulate local economic revival within the newly established estate, Governor Radda announced the direct disbursement of a non-refundable cash grant of 200,000 Naira to each beneficiary family, enabling them to launch small-scale trade enterprises or purchase agricultural inputs for the upcoming farming season.
Radda described the completed houses not merely as engineering projects, but as powerful symbols of the state government’s unbroken covenant with families who have lost their loved ones, their ancestral homes, and their primary sources of livelihood to rural terrorism. He reiterated that while the state's security architecture continues to work closely with federal military forces to hunt down unrepentant criminal elements, the administrative carrot-and-stick approach remains active, offering a clear choice between total destruction by state forces or peaceful prosperity through state-backed rehabilitation.
