Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi on Monday said bandits terrorising the North-West geopolitical zone are using proceeds from their kidnapping exercise to fund the insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country.
The governor, who is also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, stated while speaking to reporters after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, adding that it has been discovered that those behind the insurgency in the North-East are also the sponsors of banditry in the North-West and kidnapping in other parts of the country.
“There is a direct correlation, I’ve said this to you before, between insurgency in the Northeast, and what we’re seeing manifesting itself as banditry in the Northwest, or kidnapping in the Southwest. Some of the people involved in these are also the ones responsible for insurgency.
“They are using the resources that they make from kidnapping for the activities that they’re conducting in the Northeast. So, we need to take a comprehensive look at all these things and not treat them in compartments. We must treat them as a comprehensive issue and then tackle them collectively”, he said.
