Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, says all the Governors of the 36 States are unanimous on the need for the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) to bomb the forests where bandits and other criminal elements have been hiding or taking shelter.
But a Governor told the Abuja-based Daily Trust he is worried that the Kaduna State Governor was divulging sensitive security information to the public.
He added that El-Rufai’s statement did not represent the complete picture of the Governors’ position.
Governor El-Rufai said Abuja Tuesday at a high-level dialogue on ‘Financing Safe Schools: Creating Safe Learning Communities’ organised by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning that all terrorists and bandits should be killed as the only way of ensuring security in troubled parts of the country.
Governor El-Rufai said that “nobody living in the forest is innocent and we must kill them all. The Chief of Air Staff has been doing well and this has led to a reduction in the activities of bandits in recent times.
“What is needed is coordinated action and we need more drones rather than aircraft. We need a combination of air power and troops on the ground.”
This is not the first time the Governor is advocating for the summary execution of the bandits. He has in the past criticised amnesty for the armed groups insisting that only firepower could subdue them.
The Governor, at the Tuesday event, also insisted that banditry can stop if people stop negotiating with them and paying them ransom.
According to Governor El-Rufai, “people ask if my child was kidnapped and I say that I won’t pay, it is a personal decision, which we do not all support. So the only way to stop banditry is to kill them all.”
However, in 2016, El-Rufai acknowledged that his government tracked down some armed and aggrieved Fulanis and paid them to stop killing Southern Kaduna residents and destroying their communities.
He had said, “For southern Kaduna, we didn’t understand what was going on and we decided to set up a committee under Gen. Martin Luther Agwai (rtd) to find out what was going on there. What was established was that the root of the problem has a history starting from the 2011 post-election violence.
“Fulani herdsmen from across Africa bring their cattle down towards Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. The moment the rains start around March, April, they start moving them up to go back to their various communities and countries.
“Unfortunately, it was when they were moving up with their cattle across Southern Kaduna that the elections of 2011 took place and the crisis trapped some of them. Some of them were from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal. Fulanis are in 14 African countries and they traverse this country with the cattle.
“So many of these people were killed, cattle lost and they organised themselves and came back to revenge. So a lot of what was happening in Southern Kaduna was actually from outside Nigeria. We got a hint that the late Governor Patrick Yakowa got this information and he sent someone to go round some of these Fulani communities, but of course after he died, the whole thing stopped. That is what we inherited. But the Agwai committee established that.
“We took certain steps. We got a group of people that were going round trying to trace some of these people in Cameroon, Niger Republic and so on to tell them that there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost and he is begging them to stop killing.
“In most of the communities, once that appeal was made to them, they said they have forgiven. There are one or two that asked for monetary compensation. They said they have forgiven the death of human beings, but want compensation for cattle. We said no problem, and we paid some. As recently as two weeks ago, the team went to Niger Republic to attend one Fulani gathering that they hold every year with a message from me.”
This story first appeared in Daily Trust