The police in Katsina State have said they arrested a 43-year-old repentant bandit, Abdullahi Mai-Rafi, who works as an assistant in the office of the Special Adviser on Security Matters to the Katsina State Governor and two others.
They were alleged to have been associated with impersonation, armed robbery, and cattle rustling.
Police spokesman, Superintendent of Police, Gambo Isah, said Abdullahi rustled 20 cows and robbed a victim of the sum of 7.6 million Naira.
Parading the suspects before reporters, Isah said the trio went to Danmark Forest in Ingawa Local Government Area of the state, attacked a herder named Gide Suleiman of Malumafashi Local Government Area while his animals were grazing, and was protecting them with machetes and sticks.
The police spokesman also said they threatened the victim and his boys that they were from the office of the Special Adviser on Security to the Governor, with a false allegation that their brother had robbed a victim of his herds of cows, requesting that they either produce the alleged rustler or bring a hundred cows.
Isah further said it was during the second attempt by the suspects to rob the same victim and rustle another set of 20 cows, that they were rounded up at a market, where they went to sell them.
The 43-year-old suspected leader of the gang and a repentant bandit, Abdullahi Mai-Rafi, working with the state government in the office of the Special Adviser on Security Matters to the Governor, said he is well placed, earning a monthly salary of 110, 000 Naira.
Not denying and showing remorse for his alleged actions, Mai-Rafi said he is not the only one that has committed such an offence, saying it was a mistake that anyone can fall for.
He noted that after selling some of the cows for 1.2 million Naira, of which the three of them got about 400 thousand Naira each from the proceeds.
Though he pleaded that justice should be tempered with mercy, Mai-Rafi, however, pledged to turn a new leaf and continue assisting the state government in the fight against banditry, if let off the hook.
The police image maker vowed that the Command will charge the trio to court with the evidence and other exhibits at its disposal.
Among the suspected gang members arrested and paraded is a 50-year-old man, Usman Hassan, who claimed to be the Charanchi Local Government Chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, who was alleged to have partaken in the crime.
