The Emir of Katsina, Abdulmuminu Usman, has said bandits killing people in the north-west deserve nothing but death.
The emir was speaking during a security stakeholders meeting on Tuesday in Katsina.
Present at the meeting were Governor Aminu Masari, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, the Emir of Daura, Umar Faruk Umar, and a host of others.
The emir said since the bandits have decided to go after people’s lives, they also ”don’t deserve to live”.
Mr Usman similarly lamented the delay in prosecution and punishment of offenders, saying “this is not good in serving as deterrent to other criminals.”
According to the monarch, governments at all level must rise and punish the bandits accordingly, stressing that no one should resort to banditry in the name of settling scores.
Bandits have turned states in the Nigerian North-west into hell, kidnapping for ransom, killing people and burning down rural communities.
The governments in some of the states like Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Sokoto have cut telecommunications services, banned the sale of petrol in containers and suspended weekly markets among other measures taken to support a military operation against the bandits.
The emir’s comment is a rebuke of people like controversial Islamic cleric, Abubakar Gumi, who has been leading a campaign for dialogue with the bandits towards granting them amnesty from punishment for their criminal activities.
