Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai on Wednesday implored the Federal Governent to declare bandits as terrorists.
The Muhammadu Buhari-led government has continued to ignore calls to declare bandits ravaging the North-West as terrorists despite their atrocities.
However, el-Rufai, on Wednesday, after receiving the third quarter security report from the Commissioner of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, Kaduna, called on the Federal Government to declare the gunmen as terrorists.
He explained that doing such would help security forces in the country to utterly wipe out the gunmen without fear of being sanctioned by the international community.
He said, “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 the 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 governor also said that the recruitment of 1,000 youths each across the 774 local government areas of the country would deal a deadly blow to bandits and other criminal elements in the land.
Its report presented earlier to the governor, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home affairs, disclosed that no fewer than 888 people were killed in violent attacks by bandits in various parts of Kaduna State in the last nine months.
While presenting the report, Aruwan explained that 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.
Noting that most of the killings were as a result of kidnappings and activities of bandits, the commissioner, however, added 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.
el-Rufai after receiving the report sympathised with the victims of the attacks and ordered for the immediate compensation of surviving victims and relatives of the deceased.
He said he would continue to support security forces to ensure they carry on their push to eliminate the bandits in the region.