By Esther Yakubu
Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, on Monday kicked against any form of dialogue with bandits, a position being canvass by prominent Islamic scholar, Sheikh Gumi.
Recall, Gumi urged the federal government to dialogue with bandits, instead of waging war against them.
Indeed, after meeting with the bandits in the forest in Zamfara State, Sheikh Gumi had asked the federal government to use security budget to address the bandits’ demands, claiming that most of them had lost all their possessions to cattle rustling and extortion.
But Governor el-Rufai in an interview with BBC Hausa, said the bandits should not be forgiven for taking arms against the country, stressing that they should also not be compensated.
He reiterated the fact that Kaduna was at war with the criminal elements, pointing out that ”my administration is at war with the bandits and so we cannot negotiate. Eliminating them is the only solution to banditry.”
Noting that the bandits would not be willing to give up kidnapping, considering the huge amounts demanded as ransom, the governor said:
“Anybody that thinks a Fulani man that ventured into kidnapping for ransom, and he is earning millions of naira, would go back to his former life of getting N100,000 after selling a cow in a year, must be deceiving himself.
“Why should they be compensated after killing people, destroying their houses. Who offended them? Ahmad Gumi is my friend and this is what we discussed with him.
“I told him that majority of these Fulani bandits don’t believe in religion. Therefore, I don’t believe in what he (Gumi) is doing that they should be forgiven and compensated.”
El-Rufai added that the lack of unity among governors of the north-western states was also hindering the fight against banditry.
“As a result, every state is fighting in its own way. If we cannot come together for the federal government to provide us with soldiers and police to enter the bush and kill all the bandits, it will be difficult to succeed in the fight against banditry.
“There is no synergy among the governors in the north-west on how to end the banditry. But Kaduna is collaborating with Niger State on modalities to end the killings by the gunmen.
“State like Zamfara adopted a policy of dialogue with the gunmen, giving them amnesty, which I don’t believe in. With this, we have differences on how to tackle the situation.
“We sat together with the governors in Katsina, but we disagreed on how to tackle the criminality. Some believed on dialogue, while others didn’t.”
