By Shu’aibu Usman Leman
Silence in public life is often defended as prudence. Yet when the financing of violence is treated as an unfortunate necessity rather than a matter of serious public concern, silence begins to carry consequences of its own.
Nigeria’s response to banditry has gradually accommodated a shadow economy of ransom payments, negotiated settlements, and official ambiguity.
What is framed as crisis management has, in practice, obscured accountability and normalised arrangements that should trouble the national conscience.
The danger lies not only in what the state fails to stop but in what it quietly permits. By allowing illicit funding streams to endure, whether through policy drift, weak enforcement, or tacit acceptance, the institutions charged with restoring order risk reinforce the very incentives that sustain banditry.
The result is a cycle in which violence is managed rather than resolved, with profound costs for governance, public trust, and human life.
Banditry in Nigeria did not emerge in a vacuum. It is the outcome of decades of governance failure, rural neglect, environmental pressure, elite opportunism, and the steady erosion of state authority across vast parts of the country. While criminal violence has existed in different forms throughout Nigeria’s history, the current wave of armed banditry, particularly in the North West, represents a fundamental shift. These are no longer isolated crimes but organised systems of violence sustained by weapons proliferation, illicit economies, and the collapse of effective local governance.
Katsina State sits at the heart of this crisis. Once known for agricultural productivity and relatively stable rural communities, large areas of the state are now defined by fear, displacement, and uncertainty. Villages have been emptied, farmlands abandoned, and local economies shattered. The impact of banditry here is not abstract. It is visible in the daily lives of ordinary people forced to negotiate survival in the absence of meaningful protection.
It was against this backdrop that a troubling allegation emerged in late 2025. According to Dr Mustapha Inuwa, a former secretary to the Katsina State Government, a local government area in the state earmarked three hundred million naira in its 2026 budget for payments to suspected bandits. This claim was made publicly and deliberately, carrying the weight of professional credibility.
Dr Inuwa is not a peripheral figure. As a former chief administrative officer of the state, he understands how budgets are prepared, debated, and approved. He knows the difference between informal expenditures and formal appropriations. His intervention therefore suggests not an improvised response to insecurity but a disturbing attempt to institutionalise engagement with criminal actors.
If true, this allegation represents far more than a controversial security tactic. It amounts to a profound moral failure. The primary responsibility of the state is to protect lives, uphold justice, and safeguard public trust. When public resources are directed toward suspected criminals, the state reverses its role, shifting from protector to negotiator and from enforcer of law to broker of appeasement.
Supporters of such approaches often appeal to pragmatism. They argue that insecurity in northern Nigeria is complex, that military responses alone have failed, and that dialogue is sometimes necessary to save lives. These arguments are not without substance. Conflict resolution literature offers examples where negotiation has helped reduce violence. However, pragmatism without ethical limits quickly becomes dangerous.
There is a vital difference between dialogue aimed at disarmament, rehabilitation, and reintegration, and the use of public funds to reward or compensate violent actors. The former seeks to restore state authority. The latter erodes it. When violence yields financial or political gain, the incentive structure of society is distorted, and banditry becomes not a risk but a rational choice.
This distortion is felt most acutely at the grassroots. Local governments are constitutionally designed to serve as the closest tier of governance to the people. They are responsible for primary healthcare, basic education, rural infrastructure, and local economic development. In a state devastated by violence, every naira carries immense opportunity cost.
Three hundred million naira could rehabilitate health centres stripped of staff and equipment. It could rebuild schools abandoned due to insecurity. It could support displaced farmers with seeds, tools, and protection to return to their land. Instead, communities are left to wonder whether their suffering has become negotiable and whether the pain they endure daily matters less than the comfort of those who terrorise them.
The erosion of justice deepens this crisis. Reports of suspected or convicted bandits being released under unclear circumstances are increasingly common. Such actions weaken deterrence and entrench public cynicism. When victims see perpetrators walk free or receive benefits, faith in the justice system collapses. In its place emerge vigilantism, silence, or reluctant coexistence with criminals.
The Katsina State Government has consistently maintained that it does not negotiate with bandits. This official position is difficult to reconcile with allegations of a formal budgetary allocation for payments to them. Governance cannot endure on contradiction. Without transparency, credible explanations, and accountability, public confidence continues to erode, and insecurity worsens.
At its core, banditry is not merely a security challenge. It is a crisis of state legitimacy. Where the state fails to provide protection, non state actors step in, sometimes as protectors, but more often as predators. When the state appears to recognise or reward such actors, it effectively surrenders its authority.
Peacebuilding must, therefore, be principled. It must prioritise victims, rebuild shattered communities, and reaffirm the rule of law. Sustainable peace cannot be bought through appeasement. It must be built through justice, accountability, and the restoration of trust between citizens and the state.
If the allegation that a local government in Katsina State budgeted public funds for payments to suspected bandits is false, the government owes the public a full, transparent, and credible explanation.
Silence or simple denial will not suffice. If the allegation is true, it must be reversed immediately, and those responsible must be held accountable.
Security is not a commodity to be purchased from the lawless. It is a right the state is obligated to guarantee.
To treat it otherwise is not only a policy failure. It is a betrayal of public trust.
Leman is a former National Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
