Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State has said governing the state is not an easy task, describing it as a “mini-Nigeria” because of its large population and cosmopolitan nature.

The governor stated this through the Commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs, Ambassador Ibrahim Waiya, who represented him at the first annual security conference of the Institute of Security and Strategic Studies (ISSS), where he received an Award of Excellence in Security Governance.

The conference was themed “Building a Resilient National Security Ecosystem: Innovation, Intelligence and Community Partnership for a Safer Nigeria.”

Speaking after receiving the award, Waiya said the recognition was a call to action on security governance, noting that the state government had adopted kinetic and non-kinetic approaches to tackling insecurity.

He said the administration had trained about 2,000 young men and women under the Neighbourhood Watch and deployed them across the 44 local government areas to support conventional security agencies.

He also highlighted the Anti-Phone Snatching Corps and the Safe Corridor programme, which he said was designed to encourage youths involved in political thuggery and violence to surrender and embrace peace.

According to him, about 340 young men had been registered and profiled under the Safe Corridor programme, while the government had released more than N500 million for the initiative.

On the challenges of governance, Yusuf said, “As one of the speakers at the summit rightly said, governing is not an easy task. It is not for a lazy person because you are actually governing a state that is like a mini-Nigeria.

“Kano has a very large population and has recently been described among the world’s most populous cities. It is a cosmopolitan state and a melting pot for Nigerians because people from all parts of Nigeria are living in Kano.

“So, Kano is actually a mini-Nigeria, and governing it is not easy,” he said.

Meanwhile, a security expert, Dr Muhammad Ali, called for stronger community security partnerships across the North-West to tackle banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, illegal mining, border vulnerabilities and inter-community conflicts.

Ali said Kano and Jigawa were not completely immune from insecurity despite their relative stability compared with some neighbouring states.

He identified strong traditional and religious institutions, economic activities, proactive security measures and geographical factors as some of the reasons for the relative stability.

The expert advocated a shift from purely kinetic operations to an integrated, community-centred security governance framework involving traditional rulers, local communities, civil society and security agencies.

He recommended formal early-warning and early-response mechanisms, stronger intelligence sharing, joint coordination between community security outfits and conventional agencies, human rights training and effective oversight.

Ali also called for inter-state intelligence sharing and joint border patrols among North-West states.

He said the governors of the seven North-West states needed to work together to defeat insecurity.

“Finally, the Governors of the seven North Western States have to come together to agree never to disagree and as soon as that is done, I would want to assure you on my honour that in four months, we can end banditry, the economy of violence, cattle rustling and any other criminal activity bedeviling the region. So help us God,” he said. (Weekend Trust)