BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
For Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari, it has been a season to regret. He has expressed regret for engaging dare devil terrorists, who are wrongly called bandits, in negotiation and subsequently granting them amnesty. His decision not to do it again has received the backing of prominent northern elders as well as public affairs analysts.
Masari had during a television programme last week, admitted that he was wrong to have believed the bandits had repented as they failed to stop their killings, kidnappings and raping of women.
Speaking to The Point, spokesman for the Northern Elders’ Forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, appealed to Nigerians not to fault the governor since he has finally realised his mistake.
Ahmed said, “You can’t fault a governor who says he has tried one option amongst other options available to him but the option didn’t work. At that stage, what appeared to him as the practical way of solving this problem was negotiation, now he says it didn’t work, so we have to fall back on other options.
“When he made the choice, he thought mediation and negotiation will work but now he says it didn’t work. It was the wrong thing to do. That is what appears to be the collective decision of the governors of Kaduna, Niger, Zamfara who will assess the situation on the basis of what they see is the best way out,”
Ahmed also urged people to stop judging criminality along ethnic and religious lines as all criminals, regardless of where they come from or the religion they practice should be made to answer to any crime they commit.
“The law in the country does not distinguish Nigerians on the basis of their faith or ethnic group. If you break the law, if you are a bandit, kidnapper and you use weapons to kill and kidnap people, rape women, the law must take its course. If these bandits are bent on continuing the way they are, then the full weight of the law must be thrown at them.
“We should not make any excuses for them on the grounds of religion or ethnicity. The truth about it is that they do not distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims or ethnic groups. These are people bent on fighting, killing and abducting the civilian population and raping women, we should not tolerate them under any circumstances,” he further stated.
To further address the security situation in his state, Masari had closed the Jibia-Gurbin-Baure and the Kankara-Sheme roads to all motorists; suspended the sale of cows and other animals at markets in 14 local government areas of the state, banned commercial phone charging points in some state LGAs, shut down all isolated filling stations, approved an official colour for commercial vehicles and called on the federal government to shut down telecommunication sites in at least 13 local governments areas in the state which are border areas notorious for banditry.
Supporting the governor’s plan to ban open grazing and describing the practice as “out-modelled and outdated,” Ahmed called for an alternative system such as ranching to be put in place to avoid chaos and difficulties.
He also noted that although other measures the governor has taken to address the insecurity will cause hardship on residents, he believed it is a price worth paying to attain the much-desired peace.
In his words, “We have to believe that they have basis for taking these decisions. Without any doubt, these measures will cause additional hardships to communities but there is a price to pay for some of these things and we support the measures that are taken to eliminate the issue of banditry. Kaduna, Niger, Zamfara and parts of Sokoto are particularly badly hit; no one is going to quarrel with any measure taken.
“What we ask for is that the governors and security agencies should please recognize the fact that the communities that are going to suffer from these restrictions are the same people who have suffered for a long time from these bandits. Our hope is that within a very short time, these measures, in addition to military and police activities will translate to elimination of banditry and kidnapping for good,” he expressed hope.
As for the Arewa Consultative Forum, bandits and other terrorist elements in the state should pay for their criminal activities. The Forum’s National Publicity Secretary, Emmanuel Yawe, stated this in an interaction with The Point.
Yawe said Masari’s latest position goes to show that he has had a sad experience with the bandits.
He further stated that “bandits are bomb makers, kidnappers and criminals. Should Nigerians welcome them back with a pat on the back forgetting or pretending that nothing happened? These people should be properly screened and made to answer for the crimes they have committed.”
He questioned government’s handling of the insecurity in the affected states saying, “Why should something like this continue for such a long time without finding a solution to it? Governor Matawalle of Zamfara State once said he knew them and we asked him to name them and he named a few people.
There was a time a helicopter that was flying there; they said it was delivering arms.
“We asked the government to look into it and investigate but nobody has answered us. Our airspace should be protected. There were reports that the helicopters have been flying around Niger, Taraba and Benue States, dropping arms but nothing has happened. The whole thing is a mystery to us,” he wondered.
“When he made the choice, he thought mediation and negotiation will work but now he says it didn’t work. It was the wrong thing to do”
The ACF spokesman threw his weight behind the various measures that Masari had adopted to contain the insecurity in the state.
“Every governor acts according to the situation on ground and security reports made available to him. He must have observed what is happening in the state and his actions may be in line. I can only pray that he succeeds and wish him success,” he said.
He advised the governor to “think properly before he acts but not act and regret like he has done before. If he acts and regrets again, nobody will take him seriously.”
In his own submission, chairman, International Society, Emeka Umeagbalasi, stated that although the governor’s eventual realisation was belated, it was a step in the right direction, adding that the granting of amnesty is hinged on stringent procedures unlike that offered to bandits and other terrorist outfits.
“It is good he’s the one saying it. One thing with crime is that once it occurs and you fail to nip it in the bud, you never can tell who will be the victim tomorrow. The issue of amnesty is not something that is done in someone’s beck and call. Amnesty programme goes with a lot of things and it is better when it is internationally arranged. You involve several neutral parties such as the various UN agencies, UN humanitarian agencies, UN refugee agencies, UN arms control and other respected neutral international organisations. You don’t just wake up one morning and grant amnesty to people that are taking up arms.
“If you look at what happened in Niger Delta those days, the amnesty programme was properly arranged and also involved lots of international concerned organisations. But in this case, a man just woke up one morning and says we are granting amnesty to bandits but they still keep on killing. Before granting them amnesty, you have not been able to ascertain why they are fighting, who is behind the fighting and things like that. Are they fighting for identity values, religious values, economic values or resources?
“There are lots of things involved in amnesty: you look at mobilization, demobilization, reintegration, rehabilitation, disarmament and things like that. Once a fighting party is subjected to these rigorous processes, and they successfully come out of it, there will be no repetition of that. But not in this kind of situation where some powerful individuals are doing it for ethno-religious and economic purposes and you are granting them amnesty, so we knew that at the end of the day, it was going to be counter-productive because of lack of sincerity and honesty in the whole thing. You see a situation where the same people granting people amnesties are the same people involved in the violence, so it’s monumentally contradictory.”
An APC chieftain, who prefers anonymity, blamed the inability to tackle the surge of banditry on the lack of political will by the federal government. He expressed dissatisfaction with the approach of the federal government, saying that if not that the government at the centnre harbours some elements of soft spot for the bandits, it could have been dealt with just like other agitators causing confusion across the country.
“I don’t want to see this thing as Rocket Science. Just one week, didn’t you see the reports from Zamfara? These people have been unduly pampered and handled with kid gloves. No criminal, getting free money and huge money for that matter and knowing that everybody is seemingly shaking before him will consider your amnesty to be anything significant. He will go ahead and do what he has in mind.
“So I support him even though it was a costly mistake initially. Bandits and terrorists are not the type of people that you negotiate with. He enjoyed the photo ops thinking he was building an enduring castle, unfortunately these people can always make you build your castle on quicksand,” he said.
