From Noah Ebije, Kaduna

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Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai yesterday said that northwest governors are not united on how to end banditry and killings in the region.
He said some of the governors see dialogue with the bandits as a solution, while others don’t.
He said it was senseless for his administration to negotiate with bandits terrorising and killing innocent people in the State and other parts of the country.
Governor El-rufai also ruled out the issue of forgiveness and compensation for bandits being advocated by the Kaduna based Islamic Scholar, Dr Ahmad Gumi, who visited some bandits recently in Kaduna and Zamfara States, pleading with them to lay down the arms.
The governor made the disclosure in an interview with BBC Hausa radio monitored yesterday.
El-Rufai, said he never believed that a Fulani herdsman, who made business out of banditry, collecting millions of naira as ransom, will ever repent from such devilish ventures.
He said he spoke with the Islamic Scholar, Dr Gumi, who he described as his friend, that majority of the bandits don’t believed in religion, which is why they killed without mercy.
“We lack unity among ourselves (governors) in this region to work together to eliminate these bandits. We in Kaduna and Niger state are still communicating‎ on how to end this problem. The Niger governor calls me and we discuss.
“Anybody who thinks a Fulani man that ventured into kidnapping for ransom and earning millions of naira would go back to his former life of getting N100,000 after selling a cow in a year must be deceiving himself.
“Why should they be compensated after killing people and destroyed their houses. Who offended them? Ahmad Gumi is my friend and this is what we discussed with him.
“I told him that the majority of these Fulani bandits don’t believe in religion. Therefore, I don’t believe in what he (Gumi) is doing that they should be forgiven and compensated,” he said.
The governor further added that any bandit arrested in the State will be killed because the state is in war with bandits.
When Daily Sun made effort to speak with Dr Gumi over the governor’s comment, there was no response from his phone.