A former executive secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Prof. Usman Yusuf has submitted that bandits are tired of fighting and are ready to embrace peace.
According to him, he is part of a group that has been engaging the bandits on the need to embrace peace and the bandits are always eager to listen to what they have to say.
Making his submission on Tuesday when he appeared as a guest during an interview on Arise Tv, Yusuf noted that the meetings with the bandits were facilitated by clerics.
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He added that banditry is a social issue and military action alone can’t be used to solve the problem.
In his words, the bandits “want genuine peace,” adding that they “are tired”.
“This is what we find out, in all the five states we went in, they listen to clerics. In Niger state, they gathered in force to a meeting of war commanders, from six states, in the forest,” he continued.
“Nobody has drawn that kind of crowd, they listen to the Sheikhs. They are tired and want genuine peace. We go there through clerics. They listen to clerics; All clerics of all faiths.”
“There’s a role for the military in all of these. Without the military, the north-west would have been overrun by Boko Haram, the north-central will be overrun by these bandits, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) will overrun the south-east, there will be warlords all-over south-west,” he said.
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“There’s a role for the military but if anybody tells you there’s a military solution to this conflict, he’s either dishonest or he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There’s no military solution to this problem.
“Banditry is a social problem and not a military one. We are increasingly militarising what is essentially a social problem. We are dropping a million-dollar bomb on people we should be providing water for.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said the federal government knows the location of bandits but they are being careful to avoid civilian casualties.
Speaking on Tuesday during a press briefing in Lagos, the minister assured Nigerians that the Federal Government is handling the problem of insecurity in the country.
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He also dismissed insinuation in some quarters that the Muhammadu Buhari-led government was clueless.
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