The Katsina State Governor, Aminu Bello Masari, on Monday ordered the closure of commercial mobile phone charging centres across the state in order to check the activities of bandits.

The governor gave the directive during the inauguration of a 13-man member monitoring and enforcement committee on the recent measures to check the growing insecurity in the state.

He promised that the government would come up with more measures to foster peace in the state.

The governor said: “I don’t need to re-emphasise that today, our priority in Katsina State is to restore normalcy in the state for our people. Security is our number one concern.

“The terms of reference also include certain issues and situations you may come across, to help in bringing about normalcy to the state.

The latest instruction that we gave out is the closure of all commercial mobile charging centres in all affected local government areas because it is believed they aid bandits to acquire means of communicating.

We will continue to bring in new measures that will help in bringing about peace and there will be further regularities regarding the use of mobile phones.

“We will also take further measures with the Federal Ministry of Communications with the aim of restoring normalcy in the communities.

“We have to be decisive and firm as this is a test we must not fail.

“The locals must understand that we are taking these measures in their best interest.

“It will hurt some of them economically but it has become necessary to take these measures now to forestall worse situations if these bandits and their collaborators are allowed free access to communications and other means of livelihood.

“It is important that we realise that our number one enemies are the informants and we must tackle them and deal with them in accordance with the law.”

The state’s Commissioner of Police, Sunusi Buba urged the residents to ensure total compliance with the order.