Former Sokoto State Governor and current Senator representing Sokoto South, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has admitted to engaging with bandits through backdoor channels during his tenure as governor in a bid to curb rising insecurity in the state.
Tambuwal made the disclosure during an appearance on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” on Friday, where he discussed the complexities of banditry in Nigeria’s North-West and the wider Sahel region.
“We did engage bandits through backdoor channels,” Tambuwal revealed, describing the security challenges as being driven by a blend of local and foreign elements, with the latter flowing into Nigeria due to the unstable Sahel region, especially post-Libya crisis.
The former governor explained that banditry in the region has deep roots tied to decades of ungoverned spaces and arms proliferation, dating as far back as the 1980s, when conflicts in Chad and Libya resulted in an influx of weapons and fighters across porous Nigerian borders.
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“Bandits are a combination of foreign elements and Nigerians. With the problems in the Sahel, particularly in Libya downwards, we have been having this problem. People don’t remember that this problem didn’t start today,” he said.
Tambuwal attributed the continued threat to poor border control and the transformation of banditry into a lucrative criminal enterprise.
“Our borders are not properly manned. So you can’t say there are no foreign elements in this banditry—there are. It’s criminality. It’s business to them, and they are making money out of it,” he said.
While comparing banditry to other security threats, Tambuwal noted that unlike Boko Haram, which operates under a clear ideological framework and command structure, bandit groups are loosely organised and often at odds with one another.
“Boko Haram… is ideologically driven and has a command structure. But banditry—yes, they have some leadership—but even among them, they fight themselves. So it’s hard to understand,” he added.
