Katsina State governor Aminu Masari has said his government should never have negotiated with bandits, let alone grant them amnesty.
Although Masari said he never regretted his decision at the time, he admitted that information available to him confirmed that engaging the bandits was not the right thing to do.
“I do not regret it. But the only thing I can say is that with the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it. We realized who we were talking with because they do not have an umbrella.
“They are not pushing for any ideological view, they are not pushing for any religious view. They are simply bandits, criminals, and thieves. Any person in the forest is a potential criminal and should be dealt with as such,” Masari says during a ChannelsTV breakfast program.
The governor also says open grazing of cattle is un-Islamic and that a ban across the country has become imperative.
“We intend to ban unnecessary roaming about with cattle. But before we do that, we will make provisions where the animals will stay. I think the situation in the southern part of the country is slightly different from the northern part of the country.
“The majority of the herders are from the northern part of the country. So, for us, we need a law that should be obeyed, not one that will be disregarded.
“For us to come up with the law, we will first of all put some structures on ground, then, we will have the law that can back up the structures so that nobody would roam or move about with cattle.
“Even that is un-Islamic. It says do not have the numbers you cannot feed that you have to stretch over to people’s land or on somebody’s farm.
“I do not think that it is right. And, certainly, once we put in place ranching for the grazing of all animals, the issue of anybody roaming about will be a thing of the past,” he says.
The governor adds that bandits are known to people in government and that they are mostly Fulanis.