Negotiating with bandits’ll enrich them, not good strategy – Ganduje tells Kwankwaso

 Former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress,
APC, Abdullahi Ganduje, has declared that sitting with bandits to negotiate is
not a good strategy.

 

Ganduje warned that negotiating with bandits would further
enrich the terrorists, thereby worsening insecurity in the country.

He made the remark at a press conference on Tuesday in
response to claims by the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic
Congress, NDC, Rabiu Kwankwaso, that he and the party’s presidential candidate,
Peter Obi, would hold talks with terrorists if elected into office in 2027.

According to Ganduje: “The role of the security agencies
depends on the strategies that have been adopted. The Air Force helps to do its
own due diligence, alongside the Army, Navy, the police, and the DSS. So, the
issue of sitting with bandits to negotiate with them personally, I don’t
appreciate that.

“Because, in Nigeria, having a gun without approval is
illegal. How do you expect hundreds of bandits to come from the forests with
their guns to sit down with local chiefs, chairmen of local governments,
traditional rulers, or even the police and start negotiating? I think that
system has failed, and it will continue to fail.

“This is because we are giving room to the bandits; we are
arming them because the negotiation is that they should be allowed to operate
here and there, they should be given money, transportation, motorcycles, and
money for logistics. So, in a way, we are giving them an enabling environment
to operate.

“And by so doing, they would enrich themselves through
kidnapping, as that would give them more financial power to purchase weapons,
which would be used against us to cause panic and then call them for
negotiation. I don’t think that is a good strategy.”

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