Govs May Opt for Dialogue with Bandits

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) may opt for dialogue with the bandits terrorising the various parts of the country.

Chairman of NGF and Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi gave the hint yesterday in Minna, Niger State, when he led a delegation of the forum on a sympathy visit to Governor Abubabkar Sani Bello.

Speaking during the visit, Fayemi said: “We also need to explore other avenues side by side with whatever the security institutions are doing if that means engaging in dialogue We may not have a choice. We may have to do that, anything to help us to deal with this immediate crisis and then to begin to address on a much more longer time basis, the root causes of this social dislocation responsible for what we are witnessing, all around us.

“We don’t want to come here on a cycle of lamentation. That’s not our job. Yes, we want to be compassionate. Yes, we want to be sympathetic. We want to feel the pain of our people because our first responsibility as governors as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution is the security and welfare of our people, but we don’t want to lament because the citizens want us to fix the problem. Our people just want us to find a permanent solution to this cycle of violence, insurgence, banditry, criminality, and brigandage in our country.”

In his response, Bello said that he was fully in support of adopting kinetic and non-kinetic approaches to curb the banditry.