As the level of insecurity in the country, especially in the north continues to worsen, the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, has lent his voice to the call for the Federal Government to declare bandits in the North-West geo-political zone of the country as “terrorists”.
He said this after receiving the security report from the Kaduna State Commissioner of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna on Wednesday. The report revealed that the so-called bandits had murdered over 343 people. injured over 200, while kidnapping over 830 citizens of Kaduna State between July and September.
According to the governor, this will make the Nigerian military carry out their task of fishing out and killing these criminals without the fear of facing any backlash from the international community.
El-Rufai, therefore, backed the National Assembly’s resolution to declare bandits as terrorists, even though he pointed out that this was not the first time he was making such a call. The governor said the state government had since 2017 written to the federal government to proscribe these bandits.
“We in the Kaduna State government had always urged for the declaration of bandits as insurgents and terrorists. We have written letters to the federal government since 2017 asking for this declaration because it is this declaration that will allow the Nigerian military to attack and kill these bandits without any major consequences in international law.
“So, we support the resolution by the National Assembly and we are going to follow up with a letter of support for the federal government to declare these bandits and insurgents as terrorists, so that, there will be fair game for our military.
“The operations against the bandits that began in this last quarter are degrading bandits, but are not yet simultaneous across all the affected states in the North-West region. That explains the limitations that our personnel and other resource deficits have imposed on federal security agencies.
“There are simply not enough boots on the ground to have credible deployment to most places, deter crime, and restore order. That is the reality that we face.
“Many state governments in the North-West and North-Central have adopted a non-conventional approach to help the security agencies to better protect our communities. In our own case, we have about 900 trained and vetted vigilantes personnel working with the security agencies.
“However, we still observed that there is no alternative to launching simultaneous operations in all states.”
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