The Sultan of Sokoto, MUHAMMADU SAAD ABUBAKAR III, says it will take decades for the bandit-ravaged North-West geopolitical zone to come out of the menacing security challenge.

The President General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) stated this at the North-West Peace and Security Summit in Katsina State today.

The Sultan expressed the readiness of traditional rulers to partner with security agencies and the seven governors of the geopolitical zone to “save our region from the numerous problems” of banditry and insurgency.

He believed that at the end of the summit, proposals to bring insurgency to the barest minimum for people to go about their lives and businesses would be arrived at.

Banditry became a phenomenon in Kaduna, Kastina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano, and Jigawa in the last one decade as a spillover of the intractable Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East zone.