Negotiation At Gunpoint

Welcome to the world of bandits in Nigeria. They kill, we pacify them with negotiation without taking measures to appease the victims of their atrocities and we wonder why banditry remains intractable? We are a bunch of jokers.

This week, the Safana Local Government Area of Katsina State signed a peace deal with bandits who have been terrorising, abducting and making life brutish for residents of its predominantly farming communities. During the accord, both parties reportedly agreed to reconcile their differences, build trust and work jointly for lasting peace in the area.

The peace pact, witnessed by the local government chairman, Abdullahi Sani Safana and some traditional rulers, follows similar efforts in the Batsari, Danmusa and Jibia council areas of the state.
For residents of these rural agrarian communities, life has been nothing short of hell on earth. They have endured unending attacks, displacement, abductions and the extortion of ransom payments, all at the hands of bandits. In some of these areas, as in parts of Zamfara and Sokoto States, people abandon their homes at sunset and return only at dawn. Farming, their primary source of livelihood, has become a dangerous gamble.

Despite the efforts by security operatives, these local governments, facing seemingly endless attacks, have chosen to negotiate directly with bandits in defiance of the position of the Katsina State Government. As far as the creed of these criminals is a complete negation of any right of sovereign Nigerian existence, what is the point of negotiating with them? Ordinarily, humans do not negotiate their existence with those who do not want them to exist. The same applies to states.

Futile Venture

But what does this negotiation really portend? Will it deliver the much-needed peace? Does it not hint at the state’s failure? And what guarantees do residents have that this latest accord will produce better results, given that similar efforts in the past have failed to yield the desired peace?

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Previous experience offers sobering answers. Katsina itself provides a model for doubt. Former Governor Aminu Bello Masari championed amnesty programmes, signing separate peace deals with criminals in 2017 and 2019 after visiting them in Rugu Forest. Yet, the violence persisted.

In Zamfara State, which has remained a hotbed of banditry, previous attempts to negotiate with these criminals also failed. Former Governor Bello Matawalle granted amnesty to bandits and other terrorists in 2021. It did not yield the desired result, forcing Matawalle to vow never to grant amnesty to bandits again.

This latest deal comes on the heels of a similar arrangement involving the notorious terror kingpin, Bello Turji, a man responsible for countless killings, the raiding of numerous communities, mass kidnappings, and the extraction of ransom payments, often before killing or releasing his victims.
While security agencies have declared Turji wanted and placed a bounty on him, well-known Islamic cleric Sheikh Musa Yusuf Asadus-Sunnah recently revealed that he had met Turji three times in one month.

According to the cleric, who claims to be part of a negotiation team backed by the federal government, these visits involved engaging Turji and his men, urging them to repent from their crimes. Like other proponents of dialogue, Sheikh Asadus-Sunnah argued that the ultimate goal was for peace to reign, even for those who favour outright military action against the bandits.

Three aspects of his disclosure are deeply alarming. First, he claims that the federal government backs the ongoing negotiation with Turji. Second, he revealed that Turji had ordered bandits in areas he controlled to allow farmers free access to their lands. Third, he asserted that 85 per cent of the bandits were “provoked” into criminality.

If, like Sheikh Asadus-Sunnah said, the federal government is fully aware and ultimately supportive of the negotiation with Turji, then we are in dire straits as a nation. This would guarantee the emergence of more Turjis, even if in new forms. It is, however, difficult to dismiss the possibility of government involvement because a lot of things are not adding up. If, with all the intelligence at its disposal, the government still claims ignorance of Turji’s whereabouts, only for the team by Asadus-Sunnah to tell us that it met with Turji thrice in one month, then one will be right to say there is no will to apprehend him or there is complicity. Either scenario is tragic for Nigeria.

Additionally, if the idea that the federal government is directly involved is troubling because it signals weakness, the fact that Turji can dictate who farms and who does not in areas believed to be under his control is equally disturbing. It shows clearly that there are ungoverned spaces or, better still, areas where criminals’ word dwarfs the state’s sovereignty.

Equally annoying to me is the cleric’s claim that most bandits were “provoked” into their crimes. Provoked? By whom?

Tactical Surrender?

A common thread runs through the negotiations with Turji and the peace deals struck by Batsari, Danmusa, Jibia and Safana officials: they all signal surrender to these terrorists.
I cannot, in good conscience, justify such negotiations. Agreeing to them sends a dangerous message that these terrorists and their sponsors within the political class, traditional institutions, security circles, or local communities have successfully broken the nation’s resolve to confront crime decisively. But most importantly, the peace deal will not work. They will not end criminality.

More than anything, the peace deal suggests an apparent erosion of state power. How can the state negotiate with bandits on terms defined by bandits who extort farmers, kidnap people for ransom and displace communities? Is this how low the nation has sunk?

Look, the security operatives need to be totally combative. What is required is an all-out war. This whole talk of a non-kinetic approach is balderdash.

Those who kill for fun, abduct for ransom, rape women, and commit crimes against humanity do not voluntarily walk away from such atrocities. They stop only when confronted by superior firepower. Like the failed initiatives before them, these current negotiations will yield nothing. It is an exercise in futility. The fact that killings and abductions have not abated despite the efforts by Asadus-Sunnah and his team says it all.

Ironically, most of these killers are Muslims or claim to be, operating in Muslim-majority areas and targeting predominantly Muslim communities across Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger, Kaduna and Kebbi States. Islam’s position on how to deal with such individuals is unambiguous. Why then do clerics like Sheikh Asadus-Sunnah choose to argue for dialogue rather than push the government towards enforcing the punishments prescribed for murderers in Islam? And what about justice for the victims?

Bandits have committed heinous violations of human rights and deserve the severest punishment. To rationalise negotiating with them is not only unthinkable but an affront to justice itself.