The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar has revealed that the rate of killings perpetrated by bandits has been highly underreported.
According to the Sultan, in one incident (out of many) 76 citizens of the state were buried in a day.
In another incident, 48 persons were laid to rest in the state. Contrary to reports being circulated, these figures were never made public, the Sultan added.
Speaking at the 3rd quarter 2021 meeting of the intra-religious council in Abuja on Thursday, Abubakar stated that the rate of insecurity in the nation has worsened.
The Sultan wondered why the intelligence agencies have been unable to identify the culprits.
The Sultan said: “In eastern Sokoto alone, there was a day we buried 76 persons, who were killed in cold blood by criminals who came from nowhere, people don’t hear about that one. There was another day we buried 48 persons in the same Sokoto, but you didn’t hear about it,” Abubakar said.
“How can people, who do these things, be unknown? Where are our intelligence agencies? Don’t we have a proactive intelligence agency that will think ahead of the bandits?
“All the people committing such atrocities must be identified. The security agencies must up their game, find them and take action on this kind of carnage. If we start doing so, all this carnage we see in this country will stop.”
Abubakar advised the government to seek help from “foreign powers to come and play the game we don’t know how to play”.
“I am making these comments with all seriousness because we are so disturbed by the way things are going,” he said.
