ABUJA, Nigeria — Datti Baba-Ahmed, the Labour Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2023 election, has called for a serious probe into former Kaduna governor Nasir el-Rufai’s allegation that the federal government is paying allowances to bandits under the guise of a “non-kinetic” security approach.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, September 2, 2025, Baba-Ahmed criticised the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) for dismissing the claims as baseless, insisting that the allegation was grave enough to warrant questioning el-Rufai and deeper scrutiny of government policy.
“If the so-called office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) would take this statement with levity, then Nuhu Ribadu was never a policeman; he is not a qualified lawyer; he should not be in that office,” Baba-Ahmed said, referring to the current NSA.
He argued that el-Rufai should be compelled to make formal statements to security agencies and, if necessary, the courts.
“Nasir should be writing some statements to the police, to the courts,” he said.
In a televised interview on Sunday, August 31, 2025, el-Rufai alleged that the federal government and Kaduna State had been paying monthly allowances to bandits and supplying them with food.
He derided the policy as “kiss the bandits,” claiming it was being driven nationally through ONSA.
“What I will not do is to pay bandits, give them a monthly allowance, or send food to them in the name of non-kinetic. It’s nonsense; we’re empowering bandits,” the former governor said.
ONSA and the Kaduna State government denied the claims, with Ribadu’s office calling them “false and baseless.”
Baba-Ahmed dismissed those rebuttals, arguing they did not address the substance of the allegations.
“That is not a reaction,” he said.
“Are people understanding the gravity of this statement?”
He stressed that any policy officially adopted by the government should be clearly declared and publicly defended, not carried out in secrecy.
“A national policy is the official position of a government; an official declaration that this is what we shall be constitutionally doing; what we shall be legally pursuing,” he said.
“Was such a thing held? Why did Nasir say it?”