Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani, has directly criticised the security approach of his predecessor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, stating that bandits cannot be successfully crushed by firearms alone.
The governor’s remarks come in response to El-Rufai’s recent television interview, in which the former governor accused the state and federal governments of paying bandits and stated, “My position has always been that any repentant bandit is a dead one. Let’s wipe them. Let’s bomb them until they are reduced to nothing….”
Speaking at the presentation of a translated book in Kaduna, Governor Sani, who represented President Bola Tinubu, argued that this stance is unrealistic. He stated that whoever claimed the use of firearms alone could solve the problem “is only playing politics”.
“Insecurity can’t be resolved solely through the use of firearms. Whoever makes such a claim is only playing politics. We must fear God and stop deceiving the people because that approach will not work,” the governor said.
According to him, the nature of banditry in the North-west is different from the ideologically-driven insurgency in the North-east. He identified the root causes as “poverty, unemployment, and neglect of rural communities.”
To support his argument, Governor Sani highlighted the shortage of security personnel across the vast region. “If you travel to Zamfara, Birnin Gwari, or the forests of Katsina, you can go for about 50 kilometers without meeting a single policeman, not to talk of a soldier,” he explained.
He maintained that leaders were elected by the people, “and it is our duty to do everything possible to protect our people.” He concluded by stating his commitment to a non-kinetic approach, reasoning that “it’s me that God will hold responsible in the hereafter.”
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