Nasarawa State Governor, Abdulahi Sule, on Friday met with the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), over the security challenges being witnessed in his state.

The meeting was held behind closed doors at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Sule told State House correspondents after the meeting that insurgents who were earlier dislodged had regrouped at the Nasarawa/Benue border from where they were now launching attacks on residents.

The governor said the terrorists active in the state belong to the Darussalam group that had been dislodged from Niger State, adding that upon a joint security operation, a lot of them were killed while 900 were arrested.

He said, “I have come to see Mr President to brief him about some of the activities happening in my state, first in the area of security that we continue to have challenges with a team of Boko Haram who had settled at the border with the FCT.

“We thank the security forces that they have been able to dislodge them.

“But now, they have gone back and gathered at our border with Benue and they are causing a lot of havoc.

“Therefore, it was an opportunity as Mr President wanted to know and I briefed him. I strongly believe that just like decision was taken last time to take care of this issue, another decision will be taken.”

Speaking further on the issue, the governor said, “When we took the hostages, actually, we had to disperse them. A lot of them are families of different people in the country that were kidnapped.

“In most cases, when they kidnap women, they marry them off. We had a lot of kidnapped women that were married off. We released them back to their various states and families.

“We got people from about 17 states. A few of them were from Niger Republic. We handed over those from Niger Republic to the Department of State Services. We handed over those from states to their various governments through DSS offices in their domain.”

The governor said he also seized the opportunity of the meeting to thank the President for acting on the request of the state for more assistance on roads.

He said he also conferred with the President about the steps his administration is taking and sought additional support that will help the state tackle COVID-19.

“The second wave of the pandemic is really taking lives and we are worried about it. But we are doing the best we can to see if we can contain it by taking several steps that we relaxed in the past,” he added.