Dialogue With Bandits Is A Waste of Time; Governors who Tried It Regretted Later—Sen. Sani

Reactions have continued to trail a tweet by Senator Shehu Sani in which he punctured holes in the advocacy for dialogue as a ble option for ending the menace of banditry in the country, describing the dialogue as a waste of time.

In the tweet, the former lawmaker highlighted three reasons why the dialogue option isn’t workable. 

His tweet read:

“Dialogue with bandits will not work because of these three reasons; they are not an armed movement founded for the pursuit of any religious, ethnic or political causes, other than extortion by atrocious blackmail, abductions and cold-blooded murder of innocent citizens. Two, they are not united under a single leadership but operate in clusters and criminal gangs; three, their motivation is money; they kill and abduct for money.

“Bandits are unlike ISWAP and Boko elements whose acts of abduction, terrorist attacks, and slaughter of innocent citizens are done under the guise of religion.

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“Dialogue with bandits is a waste of time. Those governors who tried it later regretted it.”

According to him since the bandits are not are not a movement organized under a single command pursuing any religious, ethnic, or political cause but are primarily motivated by money, dialoguing with them will only be a waste of time that would achieve nothing. 

The majority of Nigerians who reacted to his tweet agreed with his opinion on the matter. Some said the failure of the authorities to decisively deal with the bandits is down to things other than a lack of capacity, arguing that dialoguing with the bandits is defeatist as it would show the government is weak and incapable of dealing with the situation. That, they added, would embolden not just the bandits but other criminal elements to take up arms against the state. 

However, other people asked the Senator to suggest workable solutions to the menace other than the dialogue option. 

Read some selected reactions here:

Where do you stand on the issue of dialogue with bandits?

Ifyafrica (
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