At a time when the handlers of Nigeria’s security architecture are seriously looking for solution to rising insecurity challenges in the country, the governor of Zamfara state, Bello Matawalle declared that, “not all Bandits are criminals.”
Matawalle who made this known recently at the Villa while on a visit to president Muhammadu Buhari disclosed that, “Bandits are good and responsible people.”
He pointed out that, they are victims of rustlers, and since they don’t have anybody to speak for them, they resort to violence.
This statement by the governor has continued to generate debate among Nigerians both at home and in diaspora. The governor was reported to be among the person’s that negotiated the release of Kankara school boys few weeks ago from bandits. The move received lots of backlash by many Nigerians. Many Nigerians percieves that the governor is handling Banditry with kidsglove which may encourage others to venture into the lucrative business.
The governor however sees his statement as an attempt to nip the problem of banditry in the bud. Zamfara, in the North West region, has for many years been bedeviled by security challenges with armed bandits ransacking communities and kidnapping for ransom.
Since his coming in 2019, Mr Matawalle promised to pursue a “carrot and stick” approach in addressing the menace, including dialogue with the bandits.
The approach has drawn sharp reactions with a spokesperson for the ruling All Progressive Forum (APC) at the calling for the investigation of “a North west governor” for fraternising with the bandits, in what some believed was a veiled reference
In a latest development however, the Nigerian Governors Forum recently paid a commendation visit to Governor Matawalle, expressing its total support to his anti-banditry campaign in the North-west Zone.
A statement by Mr Matawalle’s spokesperson, Zailani Bappa, said a four-member delegation of the forum led by its chairperson, who is also Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, met with Mr Matawalle at the Zamfara Governor’s Lodge, Maitama, Abuja.
The forum said it was completely in support of the efforts being made by Mr Matawalle in the fight against banditry and other criminality in Zamfara State and the North-west at large.
“We note your single-mindedness in this pursuit and we also note the positive results being recorded by your approach in the fight against the menace of banditry in your state and the North-west as a whole,” Governor Fayemi said.
“All the Nigerian Governors stand as one in your support at this hour in your total commitment to the liberation of our people from the activities of these criminals in your state and the region.
While many Nigerians expressed shock over the governor proposed dialogue with criminals, others are of the view that, if that is the only way to end Insecurity in the region, the governor should go ahead.
To this end, CNN’s Michael Smerconish was right, after all, when he famously stated recently that, “only an arsonist lets a fire burn”. But in trying to quench the raging fire, utmost care must be exercised to avoid a situation where the people may consciously add fuel to it.
This, unfortunately, is what Nigeria often end up doing, albeit inadvertently, in the sense that many of the peace pacts we have historically had in the country thus far, from the very first major one with the Niger Delta militants to that executed with some of the supposedly repentant armed bandit groups in Zamfara and other affected areas last time out, and many others in between, all seem to be geared towards assuaging the feelings of the armed militants/bandits alone, with a view to having them drop their arms.
The proposal if pulled through will witness payment of huge sums by the federal or state government, as the case may be, to entice bandits to surrender their arms in a form of buy-back arrangement aimed at mopping up the large cache of illegal and dangerous weapons in their possession, to the payment of monthly stipends to their gang members for a pre-determined mutually agreed period of time, amongst others.
But in all the previous attempts at assuaging the feeling of anger and, possibly, even guilt on the part the criminals, no one as yet appears to be even remotely concerned about the arguably even far more important need to assuage the resulting justifiable feeling of grief and anger of their innocent victims.
Nigeria has witnessed quite a number of personalities in recent times who tried to broker peace between the country and bandits. For example, a Kaduna based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, a trained medical doctor, and retired military officer, has been in the news recently on his attempts to reach out to different camps of bandits for a possible truce that will bring an end to the continued bloodbath championed by this armed group.
Sheikh Gummi’s independent and unilateral voluntary effort in this regard is commendable, no doubt, and any move by any individual or group of persons designed to contribute towards arresting the current imminent slide into anarchy should and must be welcome by everyone.
However, many lives have needlessly been lost to the raging lost to Bokoharam, armed banditry and to the numerous kidnapping franchises of today, with many bread winners of countless households sent to their early graves unjustly, sometime with no bodies to be buried by grieving family members.
These are people struggling to make an honest living on a daily basis in order to provide for their families, but whose precious lives have needlessly been terminated by those bloodthirsty criminals for no fault of theirs, leaving their hapless families in complete disarray following their murder.
A good number of people seem to associate this event with value. Critics argue that cultural relativism discourages cross-cultural criticism, rejects universal morality, and sanctions human-rights abuses and terrorism.
Anthropologists counter-argue a distinction between ‘methodological’ and ‘moral’ relativism. As a methodological tool, cultural relativism seeks to understand cultures within their own context but it does not extend to endorsing the moral legitimacy of any cultural practice.
When you interact with individuals from backgrounds different from your own, there will be times when your own values conflict with the cultural ideals of your partner. Cultural Intelligence does not require you to abandon your own cultural values or to support the practices or beliefs of other cultures.
Rather, Cultural Intelligence encourages a nonjudgmental respect for difference. This improves your interactions—when people feel respected, they are more likely to reciprocate the favourable sentiment with pro-social behavior and you are more likely to achieve your goals.
However, our cultural frameworks are intimately tied to our self-concept. Differences in values, beliefs, and behavioural norms can trigger emotional resistance or backlash. For example, asking two individuals on opposite sides of the abortion or same-sex marriage debate to embrace each other’s viewpoint is likely to be met with anger and frustration or provoke strong arguments against the opposing belief. Attempts at persuasion might even strengthen the intensity of each partner’s point of view. The notion of respect as acceptance, affirmation, or appreciation of different perspectives or ways of being may be too unrealistic.
But neither does respect have to involve reluctant tolerance. Tolerance is a negative term. It implies a gritting of one’s teeth: a quiet endurance of differences privately perceived to be deviant, immoral, or even abhorrent.
