Nigeria links own police, military personnel to terrorism, banditry
Friday February 25 2022
One of the villages deserted by residents in the aftermath of attacks by fleeing bandits. PHOTO | COURTESY
Abuja,
The authorities in Nigeria have revealed that some police and military personnel are complicit in the terrorism and banditry that have swept the country and killed more than 120,000 people since 2009.
Investigations have revealed complaints that security personnel were involved in the insurgency largely propelled by Boko Haram and Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) in northeast Nigeria and on the fringes of Chad, Niger and Cameroon, and banditry in northwest and north central.
While more than 110,000 people have died in the war against the insurgency, more than 10,000 have also been killed in bandit attacks.
Kaduna state Governor Nasir El-Rufai reported that at least 1,192 residents had died and 3,348 were kidnapped by bandits in 2021 alone.
He said on Thursday evening at a weekly briefing at the presidential villa in Abuja that reports from a preliminary investigation linked some serving police and military personnel to bandits and terrorists.
“We know where bandits are but someone has to go there to kill them,” he said.
Security operations
Reacting to the suspicion that security operations might have been infiltrated by terrorists, El-Rufai said Nigeria was concerned about infiltrators.
The governor said a report on Boko Haram financing also showed some links to bandits and pointed to some police and military officers as having some communication or connection with the criminals.
“So, there’s always that risk – in any system you have traitors and we’re concerned about that. But … we don’t have any firm evidence of that. I think a lot more work needs to be done,” he said.
“As I said, we need to pursue the financing and logistics chain of banditry as well because the amount of money these bandits are making is enough to destabilise this country. It’s a lot of money.
“We only have an idea of what it is because those that make the payments don’t tell us the truth all the time, but we hear from the legal intercepts of the conversations about how much money they are asking for, how much they have received and so on.
National insecurity
“The numbers are mind-boggling. It’s a major source of national insecurity and it will grow unless it’s decisively dealt with.”
He said if the government could cut off the finances of the bandits, seize their funds, and disrupt the supply chain, 50 per cent of the battle would have been won.
The governor said banditry in the northwest was far more serious than the Boko Haram crisis going by the growing number of the people killed and kidnapped.
Calling for simultaneous air and land attacks on the terrorists by contiguous states, he said the piecemeal attacks had not been effective enough to curb the spate of kidnappings in the northwest.
He said that although such an assault in all affected states might lead to the loss of innocent lives, his administration was willing to risk the collateral damage to secure Kaduna state and its environs.