By Infactng
Insecurity will continue to escalate in the northwest of Nigeria until the states in Nigeria learn to coordinate their policies for dealing with armed banditry.
Kaduna state governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai said in an interview with the BBC Hausa that while attempts have been made by governors in the northwest to find a common approach to the problems of insecurity in the region, each governor has been pulling in different directions.
El-Rufai’s position comes after another deadly attack by armed bandits in Birnin Gwari local government area of kaduna state at the weekend. The suspected bandits who invaded the community around 5:30pm killed 18 residents and robbed others.
El-Rufai said: “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 northwest 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,” the governor said.
“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.
“It is deceitful to believe that a person who is now counting millions as gains from ransom will embrace dialogue and return to his previous lifestyle where he saw little money occasionally.”
