Former presidential aspirant, Adamu Garba, on Friday, said raining bullets on bandits won’t end the security menace in the country.
Garba was reacting to the abduction of over 300 schoolgirls from Jangebe in Zamfara State by gunmen suspected to be bandits.
The rate of mass abduction of students by bandits in the north has become alarming in recent times. Just a week ago, bandits kidnapped dozens of students and workers of Government Science College in Kagara, Niger State. Bandits had also last year kidnapped over 300 schoolboys from Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Katsina State. Aside from Kankara and Kagara, non-state actors had also abducted hundreds of secondary school girls from Chibok, in Borno State; and Dapchi in Yobe State.
In a string of tweets on Friday, Garba said until the root cause of banditry was addressed, the country might be perpetually plagued with attacks by bandits.
He wrote, “We can stay here and keep trending #RescueJangebeGirls (but) as long as we refuse to accept that the insecurity in the north is pushed by the high level of injustice by the northern elite against the ordinary people, not even (the) U.S. (United States) can fix this issue with bullets.
“It is on all available records that Boko Haram emerged 90% out of social neglect than ideology. It seems we haven’t learnt a lesson.
“Instead of us to try and correct the problem, we went with state power to fight and kill. Government, yet again think using bullets will solve banditry. Sad.
“The political elites can keep pretending. But as long as the deep level of neglect and injustice has reached a point of betrayal of trust, we may continue to witness security issues to the point where our armed forces will get tired. We must get into the mud and fix our problems.”
The PUNCH had earlier reported that popular Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi; Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle; amongst other members of the northern elite pushed for amnesty for bandits as against the military clampdown on the criminals with fire power.
But the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had said that his regime will deal decisively with bandits and terrorists, ruling out any possibility of granting them amnesty.
