‘Why northern governors must be careful negotiating with bandits’

The Senator representing Cross River South in the Senate, Senator Gershom Bassey, has urged northern governors to exercise caution in negotiating with bandit as part of efforts to stem banditry and kidnapping.

The lawmaker, while fielding questions from journalists in Abuja on raging issues, said though the federal government’s amnesty programme reduced militancy in the south-south, there were concerns about controlling bandits’ actions after negotiations.

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He said: “I do know that in south-south, even in my state, there have been negotiations under the amnesty programme with militants, who were agitating for something. What we found was that when we had those negotiations under the amnesty programme, the level of militancy reduced. I think that is the model the few governors in the north may be looking at.

“But they need to be careful. There is a question of control. If you negotiate with these people, can you control their actions thereafter? I don’t know the answer to that. So, it’s a more intricate question. If that is the way they want to go, they can ensure that all agreements are respected. But a lot of law-abiding people will tell you that it’s very difficult.”

Harps on equipping police

According to him, though the Police as presently constituted in Nigeria is grossly underfunded in terms of number of personnel to the population, but if the required technological devices are put in place, crimes and criminalities would reduced.

“You don’t see or hear of kidnapping in many countries, why? It’s because of technology. Once you have the technology, kidnapping becomes extremely difficult,” he said.

The Senator noted that adequate funding and recruitment of personnel were another urgent steps needed to be taken by the federal government for the Nigeria Police Force as well as other security outfits.

“There is no doubt whether we have state, federal or local police, they must be properly funded. Nigeria is under-policed, we are far below the international standard when it comes to the ratio of police to citizens. We need to recruit more police.

“Second, we need to fund not just our police but our security agencies. Like some of my colleagues were saying on the floor of the Senate that we need to have an emergency in security, that emergency must include funding, like the federal government is doing for COVID-19.

“Let’s go to the fundamentals first. The ones we have, let it work. They other one, like state police, is a medium term issue. You cannot amend the constitution today, it takes process.

“But in the meantime, Nigerians are having problem, so let address the problem now. If today we have an emergency in security, then we can quickly allocate fund, recruit the personnel and acquire the technology needed within few months,” he added.

He added that as a way of fighting insecurity through empowerment of the youth, the social intervention programme is a good idea but needs to be well implemented.