Says Poverty, Ignorance Responsible For Bandits’ Actions

Senator Ahmad Yerima, a former governor of Zamfara State has vehemently defended his decision of marrying an underage Egyptian bride.

Recall that Yerima was accused of marrying a minor – the 13-year-old daughter of his Egyptian driver.

While speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Friday night, Yerima said: “Marriage cannot stop education. How many married women are in education now?”

When asked about his wife’s education, he responded by saying “She is doing her Master’s now. I told you my own daughter who was married at the age of 16, is doing her Ph.D.”

He also criticised the Child Rights Act (2003) saying whatever act is passed at the National Assembly has to be domesticated by the state assemblies.

“And once they have not done that, it’s no longer a law,” he added.

The former governor alleged that former President Olusegun Obasanjo “tried to smuggle the Child Rights Act”.

“He passed it at the National Assembly through some manipulations but I don’t think any state in the North domesticated it and passed it,” Yerima said.

The former Governor of Zamfara State, Ahmad Sani Yerima, also asserted that those involved in acts of banditry are doing so because of poverty as well as ignorance.

This is coming off his earlier remarks asking the Federal Government to engage in negotiations with bandits as a way of eradicating the abduction, killings and incursions plaguing parts of the North.

“No educated person, Christian Muslim, Jew or Hindu who is in his right state of mind and has something to do and does not have a poverty problem that will take up arms and kill an innocent person.”

“The major problem facing these people is poverty and ignorance,” Yerima said when quizzed about the reason for the growing case of banditry.

Speaking further, the former Deputy Minority Leader of the Senate also claimed that the previous governments had failed to address the plights of the bandits

“In the past various state government have not taken care of them, and the cattle routes and forest reserves left for them have been taken over by farmers,” he said.

Senator Yerima was quick to debunk speculations that the presence of natural resources such as gold played a major part in the rise of banditry in his state

“This has always been there and the illegal mining that is going on there is of a very small scale; artisan mining.”

“We don’t have any industry or any large-scale or medium-scale mining going on in the state. People are just talking about it but we have solid minerals in the Northern part of Nigeria but that is not the cause at all,” he said.

“The Federal government’s previous administration banned all sorts of mining in Nigeria because they are all illegal.”

On his successor, Bello Matawalle’s assertion that bandits were involved in the commerce of gold for firearms and ammunition, Yerima said ” I think he just said it.”

“When I saw him presenting gold to Mr President (Muhammadu Buhari) I was shocked because where do we process such in Nigeria.”

He also dismissed what he described as “speculations” of the involvement of foreign corporations in the illegal trade of gold in the country.

When asked about possible involvement in the trade as well as turning a blind eye to it, the Senator said, “I assure you that nothing going on as far as large-scale mining in Zamfara state, we have artisan mining, in fact it is villagers that are going into it. But for a proper mining, it is capital intensive.”