No Military Solution to North West Crisis – Shettima

Kashim Shettima

Vice President of Nigeria

In order to gain Nigerians' support for the federal government's soon-to-be-unveiled solution to the simmering situation in the North West, Vice President Kashim Shettima has made several appeals.

According to reports, the region has been dealing with a rise in banditry that has resulted in hundreds of fatalities and thousands of displaced people, and many stakeholders have previously argued against the government's military plan to address the situation.

However, the Chief of Army Staff, Maj. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, allegedly spoke out against the country's amnesty program for terrorists and bandits last week, claiming that rather than show remorse, those who benefit from such programs see the scheme as a way to reassemble and attack defenseless civilians.

However, the Vice President said in Kano on Sunday that President Bola Tinubu was committed to rethink the idea and meaning of contemporary administration.

He asserted that the North West conflict cannot be resolved militarily.

He said, “The crisis we have in the North West, further accentuated by poverty and social exclusion is something the president is determined to frontally confront and in the coming weeks, he is going to unveil the solution.

 “Unless we want to engage in an endless war of attrition, there cannot be a military solution to the crisis in the North-West There has to be a kinetic and non-kinetic solution. And President Bola Tinubu in the next couple of weeks will unveil the Pulaku solution which will address the grievances and social exclusion of our Fulbe cousins in the Northwest; towards addressing the root causes of all the banditry and insurgency in the nation.”

The governor of Kano state, Abba Kabir Yusuf, met the vice president when he arrived in Kano to pay his respects to the Emir of Bichi, Alhaji Nasiru Ado Bayero, and Kano state following the death of Malam Imam Galadanci, the Emir's sister-in-law and the Sultan of Sokoto.

The Emir of Bichi praised President Tinubu and the Vice President at his Kano house and expressed hope that both of them would establish policies and initiatives that would further spur national growth.