A human rights lawyer and public interest advocate, Chief Malcolm E. Omirhobo, has strongly criticised a recent suggestion by the Chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Bashir Dalhatu, that the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme should serve as a model for addressing banditry in Northern Nigeria.
In a public statement issued on Thursday, Omirhobo described the comparison as “deeply flawed, intellectually dishonest, and utterly insulting to the Nigerian people.”
Dalhatu had reportedly argued that the Federal Government could adopt a similar amnesty framework for bandits in the North, a proposal that has sparked widespread debate. But Omirhobo insisted that equating the Niger Delta agitation with banditry amounted to legitimising terrorism and rewarding violence.
According to him, the Niger Delta militancy was a rights-based struggle rooted in decades of environmental degradation, economic marginalisation, and constitutional injustice. He said the agitation was a demand for resource control, environmental justice, and socio-economic rights for oil-bearing communities.
Conversely, he argued, banditry in Northern Nigeria has no ideological foundation or legitimate grievance.
“Banditry is not a struggle. It is criminality. It is terrorism, kidnapping, extortion, murder, and the mass destruction of innocent lives and livelihoods,” Omirhobo said. “What do the bandits want? Who wronged them? What constitutional injustice are they fighting for? None.”
He accused bandit groups of killing Nigerians for profit, abducting schoolchildren for ransom, taxing farmers, burning communities, and collaborating with foreign criminal networks, insisting that these acts cannot be compared to the Niger Delta agitation.
The lawyer warned that granting amnesty to bandits would set a “dangerous precedent,” suggesting that it would encourage other disgruntled youths to pick up arms as a shortcut to government benefits.
“If bandits receive amnesty today, tomorrow every unemployed or misguided young man will believe that the fastest route to government funding is to pick up arms against the State,” he said. “Nigeria must never reward criminality.”
Omirhobo urged the Federal Government to instead strengthen intelligence gathering, intensify military operations, establish effective community policing, and prosecute all financiers and collaborators linked to banditry. He added that rehabilitation should only apply to individuals who genuinely surrender before committing atrocities.
He also called for comprehensive socio-economic development plans for communities affected by insecurity.
“Anything less is a betrayal of justice and a mockery of citizens who have suffered under the cruelty of bandits,” he said. “Nigeria deserves peace built on justice, not peace built on rewarding those who shed innocent blood.”
