The North West Region Governors Forum, has alleged that dialogue with terrorists by some past governors in the Region failed because the past governments negotiated at a very weak point.
The Chairman of the Forum and Katsina State governor, Governor Dikko Radda said this when he featured on Friday Channels Television Politics Today Magazine Programme.
He said the efforts didn’t succeed due to the dynamic nature of the various Bandits Cells and operational modes in some States, including Katsina and Zamfara, and some other parts with high level of insecurity.
He said his administration didn’t negotiate with criminal elements, but adopted kinetic approach in collaborating with the various security to secure Katsina State.
According to him, “Yes, it is true that our predecessors had tried many ways to dialogue with these Bandits. But, it did not work. What we came to understand is that it doesn’t work.
“Why didn’t it work? Because of some reason. One, we negotiated with those Bandits at the point of weakness. Rather, you negotiate at the point of strength.
“Bandits in Katsina have more than 100 camps that have many leaders. So, if you negotiate with camp A and B, and you didn’t negotiate with camp C and D, it will not create any lasting peace.
“If you also negotiate with those leaders in the other camps, they may not necessarily comply with the arrangement of other leaders.
“So, that is what makes negotiation with Bandits a very difficult task in the Northern part of the Country.
“Nobody is saying that we shouldn’t have peace or go into the Bushes. But I will never go into negotiation with Bandits.
“Sincerely, another way we want to tackle insecurity is to improve on the well-being of the people, provide good governance, accountability and Transparency — making people to believe in the government.
“The problem we have in Nigeria is that a lot of people do not believe in sincerity of the leaders. “What we are doing is to bring back confidence in the people and make them to believe that we are there for them.
“Do everything possible to support development of our people. That is why we are trying to fight poverty the way it suppose to be.
“We are also trying to improve on agricultural production. So, we need the provide the basic things for our people so that they will have a better life”, he said.
TheNewspad recalls that former Governors of Katsina, Aminu Masari and Zamfara, Bello Matawalle, now Nigeria’s Minister of Defence are known to have granted amnesty to terrorists and negotiated with them during their tenures in office.
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