Kaduna state governor, Nasir el-Rufai Thursday recommended ways to finally put to rest banditry and terrorism besetting the northwest, saying that the military had been reluctant to engage them fully because of the fear of being dragged before the International Court of Justice (ICC) for crimes against humanity.
Featuring on the weekly ministerial press briefing organized by the Presidential Communications Team at the presidential villa, Abuja, he said while he had campaigned for the bandits to be classified as terrorists, there were some push backs on the ground that they do not have a recognized leadership structure.
He expressed delight over the court ruling, which recently declared the bandits as terrorists and therefore made them “a fair game.”
El-Rufai said to deal with the criminality permanently, there must be a simultaneous ground and air attacks in all the states hosting the criminals to prevent them from escaping.
He said the locations of the terrorists are known, saying that they must be wiped out at once rather than the present piecemeal approach if the problem must be solved.
The governor said the Fulanis who are involved in the criminality will never abandon the business on their own because they make far more money from it than they would have made from legitimate cattle business.
El-Rufai affirmed that kidnapping and terrorism had since become business but with the added element of collaborating with Boko Haram even as he said the effort to tackle the menace had been uncoordinated.
According to him, some state governors had the impression that negotiating with the criminals would end the problem but later realized that it was a mistake.
He revealed that northwest state governments began a process of cooperation and co-financing the military operation against cattle rustling.
The governor regretted that the operation was not sustained because some of them backed out after some success was recorded only for kidnapping to take over.
He said on the reported cases, while 937 were killed and 1,972 kidnapped by bandits in the state in 2020, a total of 1,192 were killed and 3,348 kidnapped in 2021, suggesting a deterioration in the situation.
The governor also regretted at the lack of capacity of Nigeria’s security agencies in terms of adequate personnel and equipment, stressing the need to recruit more hands and procure sufficient equipment.
Dwelling on the casualty figures of Kaduna state, he affirmed that the insecurity in the northwest is far more lethal than Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.
In response to a question, he said: “I am persuaded that the insurgency in the Northwest is far more lethal, far more serious than Boko Haram, both in terms of the numbers of people affected. As you can see this is just Kaduna numbers, one or two years. I can assure you the numbers in Zamfara and Katsina are two to three times of this if they are keeping tabs.
“The numbers in Sokoto, Niger and Kebbi will be about this. So, we are talking of tens of thousands of people getting killed, getting kidnapped. It is far more serious than Boko Haram.
“The only thing is that these guys don’t take territories. They are in the forests, ungoverned spaces. So, they do not attract the same kind of single-minded attention that Boko Haram does and because Boko Haram’s ideology is religious or contentiously religious, you know, it elicits more passion.
“But really, this is a far more serious problem because this is largely a situation in which people of about the same ethnicity, about the same religion, you know, killing each other, stealing each other’s property, creating an industry out of criminality. It’s very serious and it requires single-minded attention.”
“Yes, we know where these bandits are, we have the maps. But somebody has to go in and kill them. I can’t do that. If that somebody doesn’t have enough men, doesn’t have enough fire power, doesn’t have technology, no one is going to commit suicide.
“This is why under this administration, Nigeria Governors Forum collaborated with the federal government to take money from the excess crude account to buy super Tocano jets and other armaments to strengthen our Defence system.”
Speaking further on the challenges of defeating the terrorists, el-Rufai added: “Secondly, how many men and women do we have in the armed forces and the police and look at how stressed they are? The last time I checked, the Nigerian Army is engaged in internal security operations in 32 states. So how many people can you spare at a time to go into these forests? These are the issues.
“Of course, you cannot double the size of the armed forces and police overnight, it requires selection, training and so on, but you can invest in superior armaments and technology, which can bridge that deficit and that requires a lot of money.
“There is also another constraint; the fact that these guys are just disorganized groups, so you cannot call them insurgents until the Federal High Court, on the application of the Attorney-General, looked at all the facts and said these guys are terrorists.
“Until that declaration was made, any military action against them could be considered a crime against humanity and while we are waiting for that, these guys have strengthened, they have collected a lot of money, they have done this, they have done that.
“So, we are facing a massive monster that has been financially oiled and the arms are there from the collapse of Libya and they are coming in, some of them (arms) superior to what our police and armed forces have.
“So, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Intelligence is the first step, we have that, but now we must have the capability to be able to go in and wipe out these guys. And we should not do so if it will mean putting our soldiers and our policemen at risk.
“One of the new phenomena that was observed in the last month or two is planting of mines. This one is Boko Haram, it’s not bandits. We lost five soldiers in an APC (Armed Personnel Carrier) that you got on the mine.
“Last week, a cow stepped on a mine and died. Luckily no one was killed. So, it’s a complex problem and it requires a coordinated solution, but the solution is on the table and our hope is that this will be implemented very quickly.”
The governor affirmed that the ethnic-religious problem that Kaduna was known for is gradually ebbing as he observed that Muslims and Christians now largely cohabit.
He explained: “The one that Kaduna has been famous for his ethno religious crisis. We have managed to contain that to a large extent and I think people are learning to live together.
“The ethnic enclaves, particularly in Kaduna, we have resolved it. You know, Muslims and Christians, live together now because everyone feels safe enough. It will take a long time, but I think we’re moving in the right direction.
“I think the key issue is for people to understand that every Nigerian has the right to live anywhere in Nigeria that he or she chooses. You don’t have to agree with him, but so long as he is law abiding, you should let him be and there is beauty in diversity.
“The most advanced countries in the world are those that are the most diverse, there is beauty in that. There is beauty in size, Nigeria is better, bigger together.
“So, it’s something that we have to keep working on. We have done our bit. We hope those that come after us will do theirs.”
El-Rufai, who made a detail presentation of the achievements of his government, said the state had spent N21 billion on insecurity in the last seven years, adding that the federal government has however refunded N100 million of the amount.
He said despite the insecurity that had diverted state resources, his administration had been able to achieve tremendous success, wondering how things would have been without the present insecurity.
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