Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello has come out to say that he will not negotiate with criminal elements in the state.

He recently revealed that recent history has shown that criminal gangs mostly take advantage of this gesture to wreak more havoc, as it is mostly seen as weakness.

According to him, a criminal gang were recently offered amnesty in Nasarawa state after the intervention of a top politician, but the group reneged on its agreement with the government, and its members kept terrorising the people.

He added that he only wants to ensure Kogi residents own the security architecture and work with the defence, security and intelligence service by way of giving them information.

His words, “When we went to Nasarawa state for a meeting, some bandits were said to have repented and that we should grant them amnesty. I did say that I would never negotiate with bandits or criminals. Not up to two weeks after, the head of these bandits who I saw with my naked eyes and his lieutenants went on the rampage again kidnapping, killing and maiming our people”

“What we did in Kogi state was to ensure that the citizens owned the security architecture and work with the defence, security and intelligence service by way of giving them information.”

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Yahaya Adoza Bello (born June 18, 1975) is a Nigerian politician, businessman and the current Governor of Kogi State.

Bello was born June 18, 1975 in Okene, Kogi State, the youngest of six children. He attended Local Government Education Authority (Nigeria) (LGEA) Primary School, Agassa in Okene LGA beginning in 1984. He was named as a class prefect of class two and was made the school Head Boy in class six.

Bello was declared winner of the 2015 Kogi gubernatorial election after he was chosen on the platform of the All Progressives Congress as the replacement for the late Abubakar Audu who originally won the election but died before the result was declared.

On the 16 November 2019, Bello was re-elected after he defeated the PDP opposition by over 200,000 votes. On the 14 of September 2020, he was among a list of politicians placed on visa ban by the state department for undermining democracy in Nigeria.