Governor Bello Matawalle has announced that the ban on telecommunication networks in Zamfara State will be lifted on Tuesday.
The telecommunication services were disrupted in the state on September 4 as part of the stringent measures to contain the raging armed banditry and kidnapping plaguing the state.
Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle
However the services were restored to Gusau, the state capital a month later.
According to Daily Trust, speaking during the election of the executive council members of the All Progressive Congress at the state party congress, Matawalle said telecommunication services would be restored and the ban on weekly market activities would be lifted.
“From the information we have gotten, there is clear reduction in the surge of crimes in our communities and by Monday or Tuesday, everyone in our communities would be able to communicate with the outside world.
“We are taking right steps to ensure the criminals have no breathing space. If we are suffering, they are suffering too. The social and economic well-being of the people affected by our measures will be normalised,” Matawalle said.
Despite the ban on telecommunications in parts of Zamfara, the attacks did not abate as bandits started collecting levies and taxes from communities and abducting those who refused to pay them.
The bandits had further been setting fire to farmlands and harassing farmers who refused to pay the levies imposed on their communities.
SaharaReporters had on Friday reported that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) approved the immediate restoration of telecommunications services for communities in Kaduna State where they had initially been shut down.
A message from the NCC to Kaduna State Government obtained by SaharaReporters on Friday had said the approval had been granted with immediate effect.
It said, "Approval is hereby granted for you to restore telecom services in the following LGAs of Kaduna State with immediate effect. Birnin Gwari, Giwa, Igabi, Chukun, Kajuru, Kachia, Kagarko. Please you are required to confirm to the Commission the implementation of this directive as soon as is completed.”
The state government had earlier announced that it had lifted its two-month ban on mobile phone services.
This is due to recent attacks by bandits along the Kaduna-Abuja Road despite the ban.
The state government through the Commissioner of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, had announced the development earlier on Friday.
Aruwan said the relevant government agency in charge of telecommunications had been directed to lift the ban.
However, Aruwan said other measures initiated to tackle banditry like the ban on motorcycles, weekly markets, selling of fuel in kegs would remain in force.
The state government had asked telecommunications firms to suspend their services in the state from September 30, towards checking the activities of bandits.
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SaharaReporters, New York
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