Northern leaders have rejected Malam Yerima Sani’s request asking President Tinubu to negotiate with terrorists and bandits in Nigeria and grant them amnesty as it was done for Niger Delta militants by the late Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration.
However, In their separate views, they argued that such negotiations will continue to fail because the bandits do not have a central command of leadership and they never kept the agreements reached with some of them in the past by some states and communities in the north.
President General of Mzough U Tiv, MUT, worldwide and Chairman of the three sociocultural/ethnic groups in Benue state, Chief Iorbee Ihagh said: “there is no way President Tinubu’s government will negotiate with bandits and terrorists. These are people who were brought into this country from parts of West Africa to prosecute elections for some persons in 2015. After they won their elections they failed to keep to the agreement they entered with the criminals and that is why they took to banditry and terrorism and tormenting the North. Those who brought them into the country know themselves. They should be made to go and clean up the mess they created for Nigerians.
Similarly, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, National President of the Middle Belt Forum, said: “Unless he is one of them and he is trying to protect them, otherwise who negotiates with terrorists.To negotiate with terrorists means to endorse criminality and encourage non-state actors to have the courage to come up and start something again in the future. The way forward is to crush them, to take them out of existence.
Dr. Mikailu Barau, a northern leader and an academic from Zamfara State, lampooned Yarima for contributing to the escalation of the crisis while he served as Zamfara State governor. He however said “the issue is really controversial. The last thing that an average person from Zamfara would want to hear is making negotiations with the bandits. But from what we have seen so far, all attempts to use force against them have not been fruitful as they now reach out for support beyond the borders of Nigeria.
