With the rising state of insecurity and brazen acts of violence and kidnappings being carried out by bandits, Nigerians are constantly in fear of their lives.
Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, has asked the Federal Government of Nigeria to declare bandits terrorists.
Point News247 reports that Governor El-Rufai maintains that declaring the bandits threatening the peace of the Northwestern region as “terrorists” will enable the Nigerian security forces to utterly decimate them without fear of being sanctioned by the international community.
El-Rufai gave this call after receiving the third quarter security report from the Commissioner of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna on Wednesday.
In his words; “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.”
El-Rufai added that the recruitment of 1,000 youths from each 774 local government areas across the country would deal a deadly blow to bandits and other criminal elements in the land.
In an earlier report presented by the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, it was revealed that at least 888 people were killed in violent attacks by bandits in various parts of Kaduna State in the last nine months.
The Commissioner in his detailed report said a total number of 343 people were killed by bandits between July and September this year alone, while 2,553 people were kidnapped by bandits in various communities across the state from January to September 2021.
Although most of the killings were attributed to kidnappings and the activities of bandits, the commissioner however disclosed that some deaths within the period under review were due to communal clashes, violent attacks, and reprisals that cut across all ethnic and religious groups in the state.