Rising from a meeting under the auspices of North East Governors Forum last Saturday in Maiduguri, the governors of the six northeastern states released a statement in which they decried a spike in criminal activities in their states due to the increasing infiltration of bandits, particularly in Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba states. In the statement, the governors acknowledged “the relative success recorded against insurgency”, but warned that “a new dimension of growing banditry is added to worsen the security situation in the subregion”.

They identified illegal mining and especially…