Fresh facts have emerged on how governors’ political thugs during elections in the country have transformed into bandits and kidnappers terrorising the country.
According to reports, some governors in the country who were bent on attaining political success during the last general elections recruited young boys into their network and armed them with sophisticated weapons to do their bidding during the poll.
The recruited thugs targeted perceived political opponents and snatched of ballot boxes during elections.
Kogi state governor Yahaya Bello collaborated recent reports when he revealed that some top political class are behind the spread of insecurity in Nigeria.
Also, there has allegations that some governors had armed thugs for electoral purposes. After the elections, most of the thugs felt abandoned and consequently went away with the weapons in their possession and have therefore taken to kidnapping and other forms of criminalities to make ends meet.
A top security source who did not want his name in print confirmed that some governors have been making overtures to some of the thugs to return the weapons in their possession under an amnesty deal that has not been successful.
According to the source, “These governors know that they have succeeded in creating monsters in their states just for political gains. They didn’t realize that a time like this would come when they would lose the allegiance of their thugs. The bulk of the banditry cases experienced in the country are attributable to these thugs that felt used and dumped after the elections.
“Since they have weapons in their possession, they have consequently gone berserk by engaging in acts of criminalities which pays them more compared to the peanuts that they got during the elections. We are in trouble in this country because these thugs are rampaging and are in possession of very sophisticated weapons.”
There’s also an allegation that a governor from one of the states in the Northern part of the country has been sending overtures to some of his political thugs to drop their arms and embrace peace to no avail. It was also gathered that the governor in question has been most critical of the government’s efforts in addressing the security challenges in the country in a bid to cover his tracks.
A former aide of the governor who is in the know of the dealings of the governor stated that the governor has also marked some of his former thugs for elimination in a bid to cover his tracks since he got wind that security agencies are in the know of his dealings with the thugs.
“The situation is awful. I recall that some of us warned the governor on the danger of arming these boys because they would turn against us at some point, and this is exactly what is happening. Who are these bandits disturbing the peace of the country? Are they spirits? How did they get the weapons in their possession? Please, I don’t want to say anything further. Let him sort himself as most of us that advised against it in the first place were blackmailed and shown the way out of government because we saw this coming,” he said.
