Former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has accused the Federal Government of worsening insecurity by giving financial incentives to bandits, warning that such measures embolden criminal groups instead of curbing them.

Speaking yesterday on Channels Television, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) chieftain dismissed what he described as the government’s “non-kinetic” approach of providing food and monthly stipends to bandits. According to him, the funds only end up financing sophisticated weapons.

“What I will not do is pay bandits, give them monthly allowance, or send food to them in the name of non-kinetic. It’s nonsense. We are empowering bandits. My position has always been that the only repentant bandit is a dead one. Let’s wipe them out, bomb them, and reduce them to nothing. The 5% that remain can then be rehabilitated. You do not negotiate from a position of weakness,” El-Rufai declared.

The former governor also criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration, saying it has “failed” but added that no president can resolve Nigeria’s challenges within a single four-year term.

“I want them to stop making one-term promises. Nobody believes them, and it is unfair. Things change once they get in,” he said.

On recent political violence, El-Rufai accused the Kaduna State Government of sponsoring thugs allegedly aided by the police to disrupt a Social Democratic Party (SDP) rally.

“The police provided cover for those thugs. These thugs were government-sponsored; we know them. I had earlier submitted a petition to the Inspector General of Police on how the state government is using some officers to abduct opposition figures. The statement by police accusing us of inviting thugs is proof that the policing system has collapsed,” he alleged.

He vowed to escalate the matter to the Police Service Commission and the Inspector General of Police, warning that “when security agents are the ones providing cover for thugs, then we are on our way to total destruction.”

Defending his tenure in Kaduna, El-Rufai rejected accusations of bias in governance.

“Governance is not a joke. When you’re governing 10 million people, you must not discriminate. Nobody can blackmail me that because he is a Christian, the law doesn’t apply to him. Some people in Southern Kaduna felt entitled to behave in certain ways, and I dealt with them. Some of my closest associates in government are from Southern Kaduna, so the allegations are untrue,” he maintained.

Concluding, El-Rufai dismissed negative public perceptions of him.

“The people that think I am a fundamentalist don’t know me. They have formed their opinion, but I don’t care,” he said.