Senator Uba Sani, Governor of Kaduna State, has announced that his administration has decided to recruit 7,000 people for the state’s vigilante service to eradicate banditry throughout the state.

Speaking at the flag-off ceremony for the start of training for the 7,000 recruits on Saturday evening at the Police College Kaduna, the Governor said the recruits, who were drawn from all the local government areas of the state, would be a major step towards fulfilling his promise to the good people of the state.

The newly recruited vigilantes were trained hours after bandits attacked a mosque in Ikara, killing worshippers.

He said his administration’s blueprint commits to strengthening the Kaduna Vigilance Service’s (KADVS) manpower and overall operational capacity.

Since its inception, KADVS has been collaborating with security agencies to degrade criminal elements.”

But we face the challenge of inadequate personnel to successfully wage the battle against bandits and other criminal elements.

It is for this reason that our administration decided to recruit 7,000 personnel into the Kaduna Vigilance Service (KADVS), he said.

He stated that the trainees were recruited and screened through the efforts of their Local Government chairmen, traditional and religious leaders as key stakeholders at the grassroots level, and security agencies.

Governor Uba stated that the KADVS is a complementary security outfit that provides actionable intelligence to security agencies, adding that bandits would have no hiding place with their knowledge of the local environment.

He was confident they would all be worthy of enlistment in the Service.

However, the governor warned them not to violate citizens’ rights when they began operations.

He reminded them that KADVS was established to protect the people, not to violate their rights and that he would not hesitate to discipline anyone who violated the Service’s operational guidelines or code of conduct.