By Our Correspondent <\/p>\n
The Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) has dismissed allegations by former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, that the Federal Government is coordinating payments and inducements to armed groups in the country.<\/p>\n
Spokesman of the office of National Security Adviser(ONSA),Zakari Mijinyawa had in strongly worded statement, described El-Rufai\u2019s comments as \u201cbaseless\u201d and \u201ccontradictory to verifiable facts on ground,\u201d stressing that the administration has never authorised ransom payments or inducements to criminals.<\/p>\n
El-Rufai, while speaking on Channels Television\u2019s Politics Today on Sunday, had accused the Federal Government of adopting what he called a \u201ckiss-the-bandits\u201d approach. <\/p>\n
He claimed that a national policy existed to negotiate with and compensate armed groups, instead of confronting them militarily, arguing that such a \u201cnon-kinetic\u201d strategy only emboldened the bandits.<\/p>\n
Reacting, ONSA said the remarks were not only misleading but also \u201cdeeply unfair\u201d to the memories of security personnel who have sacrificed their lives in ongoing operations against banditry and terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt no time has the ONSA, or any arm of government under this administration, engaged in ransom payments or inducements to criminals.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the contrary, we have consistently warned Nigerians against paying ransom. El-Rufai\u2019s allegations are not only false but also contradict verifiable facts on ground”, the statement read.<\/p>\n
The office explained that the government\u2019s counter-banditry framework combines both kinetic and non-kinetic measures, noting that the \u201cdual strategy\u201d involves decisive military operations alongside community engagements aimed at addressing grievances that fuel insecurity.<\/p>\n
According to ONSA, this approach has delivered results in several parts of Kaduna State, including Igabi, Birnin Gwari, and Giwa, which once bore the brunt of bandit violence but are now enjoying relative calm.<\/p>\n
The statement further paid tribute to fallen security personnel, describing their sacrifices as invaluable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is deeply insulting for a former state governor to go on national television and deny those sacrifices,\u201d the office added.<\/p>\n
ONSA also cautioned political actors against dragging national security institutions into partisan disputes, stressing that the fight against insecurity should remain above political point-scoring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent The Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) has dismissed allegations by former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, that the Federal Government is coordinating payments and inducements to armed groups in the country. Spokesman of the office of National Security Adviser(ONSA),Zakari Mijinyawa had in strongly worded statement, described El-Rufai\u2019s comments as \u201cbaseless\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1492,4338,1139,2840,4340,4339],"class_list":["post-6802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime","tag-allegations","tag-coordinating","tag-dismissed","tag-grievances","tag-inducements","tag-payments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6803,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6802\/revisions\/6803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}