Kaduna Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has urged the federal government to declare bandits as terrorists.
El-Rufal made this call at the presentation of the Kaduna State Security Incidents Report for the Third Quarter of 2021 in Kaduna on Wednesday.
According to the governor, his government has written letters to the federal government, requesting that bandits be declared terrorists since 2017.
He said declaring bandits as terrorists would allow the military to kill them without consequences in international law.
He said: “We in the Kaduna state government have always aligned with 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 the 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 they will be fair game for our military. This is the view of the Kaduna state government.”
In addition, the governor called for a consensus between the Federal Government and the 36 states on an emergency programme of recruitment into the security agencies.
He said the government can change the game significantly by hiring 1,000 willing youths from each of the 774 LGAs in the country into the security agencies.
“This will be a surge in numbers that is unprecedented since the civil war. An influx of 774,000 new boots on the ground will be a significant blow against criminals and an employment boost,” he said
He announced that next Saturday, the two Local Governments of Birnin Gwari and Zangon Kataf where elections were postponed for security reasons, will be having their own Local Government elections.
