- NSA says govt aims to use “military assets, intelligence assets to eliminate these people”
The Federal Government on Thursday ruled out the option of negotiating with bandits who are wreaking havoc especially in the Northwest and Northcentral parts of the country.
National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd) said at the Presidential Villa, Abuja that negotiating with bandits will give the impression that the federal government is weak.
Popular Islamic cleric, Sheik Ahmad Gumi, has been leading a campaign for dialogue with bandits as a means of achieving peace.
But the NSA told journalists that “the government is tackling the problem of insecurity. We’ve said this many times that there are two phases in solving this problem –the soft approach: talking, negotiating, and so on and so forth.
“While the government is not averse to talking to these entities, these human beings, I have to be very honest, the government has to apply its weight, that force that is required because you can’t even talk with people who are unreliable, who will turn out to do a different thing and people who will continue to hurt society.
“So, basically, what the government wants to rely upon is to deal with this issue by using all the assets – military assets, intelligence assets to eliminate these people.
“If along the line, some of them are ready to come out and talk and negotiate, when the time comes, we will do that but for now, we can’t keep on dwelling on ‘Let’s dialogue’.
“Psychologically, dialogue is not even good for us, it paints the picture of weakness, it paints the picture of incapacity and I, just like the Governor of Kaduna State said, do not see any reason why we cannot, with what we have, deal with these elements.”
