The decision by the Kaduna State government to negotiate a peace deal with terrorists that have virtually taken over five local government areas of the state as well as render major highways dangerous to ply, is on the face of it, a welcome step. The cost of terrorism to the country is too high to foreclose all respectable options that may yield peace and stability.
Precious human lives are lost daily while all forms of security that sustain a nation –food, energy, and job – are threatened to the point of stagnation. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that in the one year of May 2023 and April 2024, 949 persons were kidnapped and a ransom of N2.2 trillion was paid to kidnappers.
Some countries, faced with the stark danger and damage of terrorism are, notwithstanding their public avowal, sufficiently realistic to engage in a negotiated settlement with the enemy.
The Kaduna State government effort is described as the work of ‘The Peace Dialogue Group’ established in collaboration with ‘some federal agencies’ to develop a ‘Kaduna Model’ of ‘holistic approach that addresses both the symptoms and root causes of insecurity’, in the words of Malam Ibrahim Musa, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor.
He adds that it ‘will include disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, alongside investment in rural development and conflict resolution’. Let it be noted that the Kaduna State government has taken this unilateral step against the collective position of the Northwest Governors Forum since February 2024. ‘We have agreed to commit ourselves to fighting banditry and other crimes and [to] say ‘no’ negotiations with any criminals, but those who surrendered and embraced peace would be integrated into the community’ said the chairman of the forum, Dikko Radda of Katsina State.
Nonetheless, desirable as it is to talk to perpetrators of heinous crime that terrorism is, the process must be pursued with the utmost cautiousness. Past experiences by both Kaduna and Katsina state authorities in this direction justify the need for Governor Uba Sani to be wary. The point must be quickly made that the desire to settle with criminals must not, under this or indeed any circumstance, compromise the authority, the power, and the legitimacy under the Constitution of government and its primary duty to the country and its people as spelt out in Section 14(2)(b) of the constitution. This is to say that the government must necessarily come to the negotiation from a position of strength.
Malam Musa is reported to speak about a carrot–and–stick approach to the process. Very well. But it is received opinion to dine with the devil with a long spoon. As former governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai once observed, ‘We are in a war with these terrorists who are challenging the sovereignty and monopoly of the instruments of coercion of the Nigerian state and its territory’. Governments at every level as well as the citizens, must sustain the war against terror with full vigour.
That the terrorists cannot be trusted is tested and proven, based on experience. Twice, in January 2017 and September 2019, the Katsina State Government negotiated peace deals with terrorists but the talks, on both occasions, collapsed due to the insincerity of the non-state actors. The 2019 agreement was reached with the terrorists’ leaders in the presence of heads of security agencies, traditional rulers, and chairmen of the eight affected local councils. The government even set up a Katsina State Amnesty and Dialogue Programme for this purpose. As part of the deal, the governor said ‘We cancelled all vigilante and volunteer groups and we allowed [the repentant] to continue with their normal activities in the state’. The criminals reneged on the agreement and even went further to expand their activities over larger territory in the state. But the state authorities should have known if it cared to do some research.
In an interview with a foreign radio in June 2020, a frustrated Masari said that his government would no longer negotiate with the criminals because they failed to honour an earlier agreement. He restated his position in November 2020 saying: “We are no more going to negotiate with them, but if on their volition they decide to renounce their violent criminal ways and embrace peace, we are ready to listen to them. Even then, they must surrender all the arms and ammunition in their possession, otherwise, they remain enemies, to be dealt with accordingly.”
In December 2016, the then governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir el-Rufai said that he initiated a truce with marauding terrorists from Niger, Cameroon, and Mali who incessantly attacked Southern Kaduna communities on ‘revenge missions’. He even paid compensation to some who demanded it in exchange for peace. He was sorely disappointed. In March 2020, a wiser el-Rufai was sufficiently bitter to say ‘There is nothing like repentant terrorists (or bandits). The only repentant bandit is the one that is dead [and] our intention in the state is to kill them…’
Furthermore, some ‘repentant’ and rehabilitated terrorists are known to have acted as moles within the community. Some have re-joined their fellow criminals, and some have become threats to the peace of their communities.
For example, in Bornu State, 59 district heads complained at an April 2024 workshop for Peace and Development that some of the Boko Haram terrorists reintegrated into their communities were threatening to kill men who married their wives while they were in Sambisa Forest.
• To be continued tomorrow.
Guardian (NG)
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