On October 10, 2023, the ancient city of Katsina was agog and in very high spirits as Governor Malam Dikko Umar Radda, supported by Governors Dauda Lawal of Zamfara, Abba Yusuf of Kano, Nasir Idris of Kebbi, Ahmed Aliyu of Sokoto, Mai Mala Buni of Yobe and Aminu Usman, Jigawa State Deputy Governor who stood in for his Governor.

It was the occasion of the unveiling by Governor Radda of the “Batch 1” of Katsina Community Watch Corps graduates — about 1,500 carefully handpicked and rigorously trained youths who will be posted back to their localities as vigilantes to assist security agencies in curtailing the menace of insecurity. The logic of handpicking and training youths from local communities across the state to serve as Katsina Community Watch Corps is one and the same with the timeless maxim: “You want a job done well, do it yourself.”

These youths are mostly the worse hit by menace of banditry. They are either direct or indirect victims of banditry. Like Governor Radda, many of them must have suffered the dual pain of losing a loved one to rampaging bandits or suffered the trauma of having a loved in the terrifying dungeons of the bandits. And these are able bodied and emotionally calibrated youths whose only inability to confront the menace of banditry is the absence of a well organized template to do so. This is what Governor Malam Dikko Umar Radda is providing them with to assist the government to tackle the menace. This is as unprecedented as it’s pragmatic. The idea of able bodied youths being reduced to mere sitting ducks for bandits to practice target shooting with is as repulsive as it’s unacceptable.