The governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, has lamented his government’s helplessness over the inability of security forces to reach the location of bandits terrorizing citizens.
He met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja on Tuesday to give details of the security situation in Kaduna State where about 40 persons were killed by terrorists in the last few days.
Speaking to correspondents after the meeting, he observed that the security agencies have been overstretched as they are invoked in operations in all parts of the country.
On whether there is not the intelligence to go ahead of the bandits, he said: “Yes, we receive security reports, we know a lot about the bandits and where they are and their activities.
“But you must understand that the intelligence has to be acted upon. And if the security forces are unwilling or unable to reach the locations where these bandits are, then there is nothing we can do as a state government.
“Federal security forces are not under our direct control. We support them, we work with them, the intelligence is being provided, but the truth of the matter is that our military and police are very few in number and they are overstretched.”
El-Rufai noted that whereas the security forces are doing their best but their efforts are not enough.
He added: “So, you have to understand the limitations that they face before you conclude that they are not doing enough. They are doing a lot. But is it enough? Certainly not. Much more needs to be done.
“But can they do more with the number of policemen they have and the number of soldiers? I don’t know. We need to ramp up recruitment in the Nigerian Police, we need to ramp up recruitment in the Nigerian armed forces.
“We have too few numbers and our armed forces are overstretched. They are operating in several states, about 32, 33 states the last time we checked, and how many are they?
“So, we must understand the constraint that they face and sympathized with them.
“But with the acquisition of more advanced equipment from Jordan, China, Turkey, and the United States, we expect that the kinetic capabilities of our armed forces will be greatly improved.
“So, we hope to see the end of this insecurity.”
The governor also lamented that care has to be taken in dealing with bandits to avoid collateral damage to innocent civilians.
According to him, “there was a problem. Even if you know where the bandits are, you don’t want to go and bomb all of them because they may have civilians in custody. You may have collateral damage that you may not want right handle. And without the declaration of bandits as terrorists, it might even be referred to as abuse of their human rights.”
He said the recent declaration by the Federal High Court as terrorists open the way to fight them without limits.
“So, no one will be dragged to the international court because you killed bandits. No,” he said.
The governor maintained that Kaduna state will not negotiate with bandits as its policy is to kill them all.
On the nomenclature of the criminals, he explained: “They are bandits. If you want to call them terrorists you can call them terrorists, but we don’t want to confuse them with terrorists that we know, the Boko Haram. IPOB has been declared terrorists. We don’t call them terrorists, we call them IPOB. The nomenclature doesn’t matter.
“What matters is that they are now fair game for armed forces.”
He added: “Once you say banditry of whatever description has been designated terrorists, that’s it. That gives the military the power to do what they do. What we call them is not important.
“What they are called does not matter but is the legal status of being declared terrorists that matters
“The legal status is that they have been declared terrorists but which terrorists? There are many terrorists in Nigeria. Boko Haram are terrorists. Ansaru are terrorists.
“The ones that we have in Kaduna are bandits that have now been declared terrorists. These are people that rob, they kill, they kidnap for ransom
“We call them bandits to differentiate them from the rest but they are terrorists.”
He said despite the insecurity in Kaduna, the state has continued to attract investments even though it could have been better.
“Kaduna State is a huge state. We have 46,000 square kilometers. I joke with my colleagues from the southeast, Kaduna state alone can feed the five states of the southeast two and half times. It’s a huge state. So, the fact that there is insecurity in one part does not mean there’s insecurity everywhere. It’s not Lagos, it’s not a small place at all.
“Yes, we’ve had investment summit and they have been very successful. In the last five years, we have attracted nearly $3billion in investments in spite of all these stories about insecurity because investors know that large parts of Kaduna state are quite safe, they are safe as anything,” el-Rufai stated.
He regretted the killing of 40 persons in the state by bandits, saying that even though there had been such incidents, this one was a great shock.
He called for more military intervention from the federal government in terms of security forces.
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