Informants fueling 80% of bandit attacks in the state

The Katsina State Government has lamented continued security challenges bedeviling some parts of the state, saying communities and informants are responsible for 80 per cent of the situation in the state. 

The State Commissioner for Internal Security, Nasir Muazu made this known while briefing newsmen shortly after a joint security meeting at Government House, Katsina on Thursday, July 31, 2025. 

According to him, investigations have revealed that some dishonest individuals in communities are providing services to hoodlums for economic gain.

“They sell items such as fuel to the hoodlums for N5,000 per litre while a bottle of soft drink goes for about N3,000,” he said. 

Mu’azu stated that, with sufficient manpower in the security forces, insecurity would have been a thing of the past.

However, he attributed the prevalence of banditry and kidnapping in the state to the activities of bandits’ informants, who constitute about 80 percent of the problem.

“Why I said this, these bandits do not know where to buy all these things from, but some members of the communities who own shops sell their products to them at exorbitant prices, making. It is difficult to get their cooperation in a bid to address the security challenge,” he explained.

“In one of the communities affected by insecurity, a man was found to be selling a bottle of soft drink for N3,000, and another sold fuel for N5,000 per litre to bandits.

“Drugs that are usually sold for little amounts of money in pharmacies and other shops are sold in the millions of Naira by community members to the bandits.” 

He also lamented that some members of the communities also connive with bandits to abduct residents.

“In one of the cases we had, we found a man who connived with bandits to abduct his biological father,