Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai stated that the reason why kidnappers, gunmen or bandits keep terrorising his state is because of the position his government has taken on not negotiating with criminals.

The Governor stated this in an interview via Zoom with Channels TV programme, Sunday Politics.

He further stated that the government will not budge on its stance, arguing that it is barbarous to negotiate with criminals, and condemned the move.

“I think that the bandits and their leaders decided to collectively target Kaduna state because of the position we have taken that we will not negotiate with them, that we will not give them a penny of taxpayers’ money,” he said.

“And whoever comes to Kaduna for the purpose of banditry or kidnapping is most likely going to end up dead.

“We believe that the solution to this problem is to intensify military operations from the air or the ground and wipe all of them out. We do not think any bandit deserves to live.”

“There is no civilised society that can sit back when its sovereignty is challenged or when its monopoly of coercive power is challenged. The first thing to do is to wipe these bandits out. This is war, we must fight them to the end. We must wipe them out. That is the first order of business.

“When you wipe out 95 per cent of them and if five per cent are ready to repent and go back to normal civilian life, then we can talk but you don’t talk to criminals the moment they start. There is no other option. There is no society that sits and negotiates with criminals; nowhere in the world. You are empowering them, you are emboldening them,” El-Rufai said.

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