FORMER Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Usman Yusuf and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chidi Odinkalu, on Thursday, disagreed on the origin of banditry in Nigeria.
Yusuf was a keynote speaker at The ICIR live discussion series titled ‘Nigeria’s Insecurity: Addressing the Challenges of Banditry and Kidnapping,’ while Odinkalu was among the panellists.
Other discussants who joined them at the virtual meeting were former senator representing Kaduna Central Shehu Sani; Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian newspapers Martins Oloja, and Executive Director of The ICIR Dayo Ayetan.
Yusuf, a haematology-oncology and bone marrow transplantation professor, said banditry in Nigeria started in Kogi State, where kidnappers from Edo State hired herders from the North to keep their victims and shared part of their ransoms with the herders.
Upon realising how lucrative the business was, the herders returned home to begin kidnapping, he said.
“We know the injustices that have been done to the Fulanis over generations before we were born. They are one people that do not own land in this country. Their cows are rustled; there are a lot of injustices, usually by the local authorities, local judges and local police officers. They would sell their cattle. All these injustices are catching up with us.
“A bandit told me that all kidnapping in Nigeria started around 1999 to 2000 in Kogi State. What happened was that many of these young herders were told by their parents to take their cattle down South for pasture. They spent months and came back up North during the rainy season. He told me there is a forest around Kogi where kidnappers from Edo would bring in their abductees into the forest for these Fulani young men to hold for them.
“Once they get the ransom money, they come and give it to them and they took the abductees back. So, they realised there was money to be made from this criminality; and they started doing that. They started getting involved in drug; they started getting involved in alcohol,” he narrated.
However, Odinkalu disagreed with him and said there had been a proliferation of arms in the North before the 1987 Kafanchan crisis.
Odinkalu, a Professor of Law, said the proliferation of arms in the North escalated the crisis in 1987. (icirnigeria)
