The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has described as unfair the way Nigerians criticise Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara for granting amnesty to bandits in the state.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that Mr Matawalle had initiated a ‘stick and carrot’ approach where bandits who renounce criminality are easily accepted back to society while the recalcitrant ones are crushed by military might in the state.
In as much as the initiative had attracted many bandits into repentance, a lot of Nigerians had also condemned the initiative, describing it as a system of rewarding criminals for their crime.
But the minister, who spoke on AIT’s ‘Kakaaki’ show monitored by The Punch, said there was nothing wrong with granting amnesty to criminals if the purpose was to restore desired peace in affected areas.
He said: “When you are fighting insurgency, you use both kinetic and non-kinetic (means). Granting amnesty to notorious drug barons, notorious militants is not a new thing, it is not unique to Nigeria.
“You need to be in the shoes of the Zamfara State government or governor to appreciate what are the issues at stake (and) why he has done that. Don’t also forget that the state governors are their own chief security officers.
“When you are dealing with insurgency, kidnapping, banditry, you are interested in the bigger picture; how do we restore peace? If granting amnesty to one notorious kidnapper is going to give me peace in my state, I might take that decision.
“If granting amnesty to one repentant warlord would help me capture a thousand bandits, I might take that decision. Don’t just look at what is in the public place, understand the very high complexity of managing insurgency and banditry.”
The minister further said there were conditions attached to granting amnesty to criminals, adding that the state governors were in the best position to determine who meets these conditions and who should be granted amnesty.
“The governor of a state understands the dynamics of the state and takes decision but it will be unfair of us to criticise him (Matawalle) without knowing what he did and I want to believe the governors work together with the security forces in their own state, so, it is not as we think,” he added.
