Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State has declared that the military must launch a grand offensive against armed bandits in the North-west in order to free the region of the scourge of kidnapping perpetrated by bandits.
He said though the military had sustained the decimation of the criminal elements using air strikes and ground troops, insufficient attack aircraft and troops had derailed a final clearance operation
“We must kill all the bandits who must go to the forest and carpet bomb and kill everyone there. This has been our position for the past two years. I’m happy to say that this is being done, not in the coordinated manner that I wanted, because I wanted this to happen at the same time in all seven states of the North-west.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough planes. We don’t have enough soldiers. We don’t have enough to do this simultaneously. So it’s been done gradually, but there has been a lot of degradation of the bandits”, he said.
“I assure you we are killing them. We are wiping out their camps, and the military and the the the air force particularly and the Nigerian army with special forces have been doing a great job.
“Many people don’t know how many attempted kidnaps we have foiled many people don’t know because we don’t talk about it. They only know the ones that have succeeded”, he said.
Governor el-Rufai said the state government had maintained its position against payment of ransom to kidnappers.
The governor had disclosed in an earlier media interview that the plot to abduct his children was designed to see if he would not pay ransom.
“We have a feeling that the renewed attacks in Kaduna are not unconnected to the position that we have taken as a government that we will not negotiate with criminals.
“We will not give them any money and they will not make any profit from Kaduna. Anyone that comes to Kaduna will not get a penny from the state government, except he will get a bullet instead.”
Seven killed in Chikun, Kajuru, Giwa LGAs
In a related development yesterday, armed bandits reportedly killed seven persons within the last 72 hours in Chikun, Kajuru and Giwa local government areas of Kaduna State, an official of the state said last night