Shehu Sani is a Nigerian senator who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th National Assembly on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC), in this exclusive interview with The ICIR, Sani who is also a human rights activist, shared insights into the nefarious activities of bandits and terrorists while expressing worry on the state of insecurity under President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch.

The ICIR: What do you make of a recently released video of terrorists making threat against the president and the governor of Kaduna state?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtO2A-6XilQ

Shehu Sani: Well, what we need to understand is that the terror groups operating in the northwestern part of Nigeria are not a single organisation with a leader. They are diverse. We have the ISWAP, the Boko Haram, the Darul Islam, the Ansaru, and the bandits.

At least five notable terror groups are operating in the northern part of Nigeria.

Now, the bandits also have different leaders located in different states. You have their leaders like Bello Turji, like Manjagara, like Baleri, now these are leaders that map out territories for themselves between Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.

So, sometimes the bandits and the terror groups clash within themselves, so you can see how they occupy territories and unleash their terror activities.

What has happened as of the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train started from sometime last October. I happened to be a passenger on the train at that time, and I raised an alarm that the train was attacked. At that time, what they did was to plant an improvised explosive device (IED), and the train ran over it, but luckily for us, the train did not stop.

So, I raised the alarm and since then, there was no action taken on the side of the government, only saying that they have restored the track, but as of taking security measures to ensure the safety of passengers, there was virtually nothing.

So the threats you are seeing have evolved over the years. At a time, they only attacked passengers who were plying the Abuja-Kaduna road or the Kaduna-Birnin Gwari road or the Zaria-Funtua road, or the ones in Zamfara state or Katsina state but having seen that, many of the VIPs have decided to use the airlines, so they are only dealing with people whom they are not going to get much from them. So now they moved away or not away completely from attacking passengers on the road to now launching direct attacks on towns and cities.

In terms of Kaduna, almost all the settlements on the outskirts of the city are constantly under direct attack by bandits and terrorists.

They also evolved to a point where they imposed fines and taxes on villages. At a certain point in Birnin Gwari local government, villagers have to gather as much as N40 million to give to these terrorists for them to be able to go to their farms and plant their crops and also they have to pay the same amount to harvest their crops. They have succeeded in impoverishing a large number of our population apart from destroying smaller villages within the expanse of Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger states.

What they did now was also to impoverish those that remained because constantly, people kept on selling their homes and their lands to pay ransom to these terrorists. Another unfortunate development is that people living in those rural locations are more in tune with the terrorist groups because some are direct beneficiaries of part of the ransom, and some are also doing it out of fear for their lives.

I can say that Nigeria is at war with terror groups and insurgents, and bandits. We must find solutions to these because apart from our own homegrown terror groups, it appears that the terror groups are also inviting other fighters and terrorists from other parts of West Africa and Central Africa to come into Nigeria.

And because there is a systemic failure on the side of the government, they are becoming more audacious. They sometimes even write letters to villages to announce to them that they are coming and they will come the same day, and ironically they come in and operate for an hour or two before you see the intervention of security agencies, so people thought that Abuja is a well-protected city, it is an oasis of peace, but with the fact that Niger, Kaduna, Nasarawa and parts of Kogi state are unsafe, naturally they would be a contagious effect of insecurity inside Abuja, and this is what we are seeing now.

The ICIR: Now, I will link this question now to what Sheik Gumi said in the exclusive we had with him earlier. He said President Buhari is stubborn, and he knows what the bandits actually want, but he has refused to attend to their demands. What is your thought?

Shehu Sani: Well, first of all, a terrorist is a terrorist, and there are two types of terrorist. A terrorist who has picked up arms to kill and kidnap because he wants to establish an Islamic state, nothing will appease him if not an Islamic state, a terrorist who has picked up arms to fight because he wants to collect hundreds of millions of naira as ransom, nothing will appease other than if you give him the kind of money he will get when he picks up arms.

So, I am not an advocate of acceding to terrorists’ demands as long as it is outrageous. Any terrorist who wants to lay down his arms, live in a decent society, and start a small business is different from a terrorist who wants to dictate to our nation-state.

You cannot kill and kidnap people and use it in the name of Islam or any religion it’s not acceptable. They said they are fighting Islamic causes; you rape women, kidnap children, you extort hundreds of millions of naira as ransom, and you kill innocent people.

What kind of religion are you professing? What kind of society? Which religion? Certainly, it is not Islam. So, acceding to the demands of terrorists if it is about them dropping their arms and coming to live in a society it’s a different thing, but we cannot be giving hundreds of millions of naira to terrorists for them to go and purchase arms and continue to fight our country.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/exclusive-interview-president-muhammadu-buhari-has-failed-shehu-sani/

Shehu Sani should join Labour Party and campaign for the party in his state. It's not enough to criticize Buhari - everyone should join hands and save this country from collapsing by making sure that APC doesn't win the next election.

If bad performance doesn't have consequences in this part of the world, those who will continue living in this country are practically finished.

Lets vote wisely this time around.

We need to make a good decision in 2023