December 01, (THEWILL) — Bandits seem to be quite busy up North attacking churches, schools, communities, even farms and kidnapping for ransom. While fewer killings take place this time around, negotiations rather than confrontation with the criminals appear to be the key to securing the release of victims by affected communities, organisations, groups and concerned individuals.
In a meeting with journalists, a lawmaker representing Bakori Constituency in the Katsina State House of Assembly, Abdulrahman Kandarawa, claimed that he successfully secured the release of 37 villagers abducted from Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State after several weeks of negotiation with their captors.
The option of negotiation might have worked for the likes of Kandarawa for some reasons best known to them, but it was never canvassed at any time for bandits and other groups whose agenda is to wage an unprovoked and endless war of terror against Nigeria and its people.
When a CAC church in Kwara State was attacked recently during service and about 38 worshippers abducted by bandits, it took the intervention of President Bola Tinubu, according to reports, to secure the freedom of the kidnapped worshippers.
The President’s timely intervention, which surprisingly was not confrontational as expected, fuelled the suspicion that a deal with the bandits must have sufficed. That meant the Federal Government negotiated with the criminals before the worshippers were released and returned to the church. As a result, there have been muted calls for negotiation with bandits and insurgents as a tool to end terrorism and insecurity in the country. Even a popular northern group urged the government to consider offering terrorists amnesty, the kind that was offered to Niger Delta militants to pacify them, to encourage them to embrace the path of peace.
But folks like former President Olusegun Obasanjo have kicked against making overtures to terrorists in any way. The former President on Friday in Jos rejected calls for negotiations with bandits, insisting that Nigeria must take decisive action and embrace international assistance to confront escalating insecurity.
Obasanjo, who spoke at the Plateau State Unity Christmas Carol and Praise Festival held in the Plateau State capital, asked the Federal Government to stop apologising and negotiating with terrorists. He expressed displeasure over the rising insecurity, saying Nigerians have the right to seek foreign intervention to cover for what he described as the government’s failure to protect its citizens.
Obasanjo maintained that unlike during his time in office, modern technology has made it easier to flush out terrorists from their hideouts. Responding to the ex-Presidency criticism, the presidency said it would not outsource security matters to external sources, adding that cooperation with any foreign power is the better option so as to preserve the country’s sovereignty.
Whatever the argument, both sides have their merits. The government may have more information than the public and has therefore adopted what is now called kinetic-direct firepower attack and non-kinetic- intelligence gathering as deterrence- approach in dealing with the terrorists
Even so, given the audacity with which the terrorists have been conducting their reign of blood and tears even to the extent of levying farmers and communities to plant and harvest their crops, displaying their weapons while attending “peace meetings,” it may be good for the government to adopt an ell embracing method. This would include involving and supporting the people in their localities to organise and sustain vigilante groups. State or community policing should be giving attention. As many stakeholders across Nigerians have said, the terrorists are known, both as groups and in their respective enclaves. That was the point the National Assembly, while debating this security menace, disclosed last week.
The abductions have not stopped.
We urge the government to be more inclusive by looking beyond the old method of carrot and stick approach that has yielded.
As it is, Nigerians would give anything to learn exactly what is happening in the country, the true state of the so-called war against terrorism
