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).
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 pushbacks 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 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 the 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 in the reported cases, while 937 were killed and 1,972 kidnapped by bandits in the state in 2020, a total of 1,192 killed and 3,348 kidnapped in 2021, suggesting a deterioration in the situation.
He 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.
