Amid resurgent attacks in parts of the country, former Governor Nasir El-Rufai has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of emboldening bandits by paying them allowances and providing food.

In a Channels TV interview on Sunday, Mr El-Rufai faulted the non-kinetic approach to addressing insecurity in the country, insisting it empowers bandits rather than stemming their activities.

“What I will not do is to pay bandits, give them a monthly allowance, or send food to them in the name of a non-kinetic approach,” the former Kaduna governor said. “It’s nonsense; we’re empowering bandits. It’s a national policy driven by the Office of the National Security Adviser, and Kaduna is part of it. Kiss the bandits; that’s the new policy.”

Mr El-Rufai further blamed the rising insecurity in the country on the rehabilitation policy of the government, saying bandits should rather be made to answer for their heinous crimes.

“My position has always been [that] the only repentant bandit is a dead one. Let’s kill them all. Let’s bomb them until they are reduced to nothing, and then the five per cent that still want to be rehabilitated can be rehabilitated.

“You do not negotiate from the position of weakness. You don’t empower your enemy; you don’t give him money to go and buy sophisticated weapons. That is why the insecurity problem has not gone away and will not go away as long as this policy continues,” the politician explained.

The former governor said that, contrary to the government’s claims that security is improving, Nigerians, especially in Kaduna, Zamfara, and Katsina, understand the depth of the situation.

“Let the governor or anyone come and deny. When the time comes, we will reveal everything,” Mr El-Rufai noted. “They can deceive, they can cover up, they can do propaganda, but those that live in Katsina, those that live in Zamfara, those that live in Kaduna, those that live in those states, they know what is happening.”

Meanwhile, the Office of the National Security Adviser in a statement on Monday dismissed Mr El-Rufai’s claims as false and misleading, adding the government had never paid ransom to bandits.