Former Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, has admitted that his administration engaged in backdoor negotiations with bandits during his tenure in a bid to address insecurity in the region.
Tambuwal, a member of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) coalition, made the startling disclosure during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
According to him, banditry in Nigeria is not solely a domestic problem but a mixture of foreign and local criminal elements, worsened by porous borders and decades of unchecked arms proliferation across the Sahel.
“We did engage bandits through backdoor channels,” Tambuwal confirmed.
He explained that the crisis traces its roots to decades-long instability in Africa’s Sahel region.
“Bandits are a combination of foreign elements and Nigerians. With the problems in the Sahel, particularly in Libya downwards, we have been having this problem for a long time. People don’t remember that this did not start today,” he said.
Tambuwal further recalled that the influx of arms began as far back as the 1980s, when unrest in Chad triggered illegal weapon smuggling into Nigeria.
The former governor lamented that Nigeria’s poorly secured borders have allowed criminal networks to thrive.
“Our borders are not properly manned, so you can’t say there are no foreign elements in this banditry. It’s criminality, it’s business to them, and they are making money out of it,” he noted.
Drawing a distinction between Boko Haram and armed bandits, Tambuwal said while Boko Haram operates with an ideological command structure, banditry is less organized and plagued by infighting among its leaders.
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