The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu has said that bandits are getting it rough from the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
He said that what the administration has done to the bandits was worse than declaring them terrorists, as being canvassed by many Nigerians.
The presidential spokesman stated this in a Saturday interview with BBC Pidgin.
Shehu recalled that the president ordered security agencies to shoot on sight any bandit bearing an AK-47 rifle.
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He said that this subsisting order surpassed the proscription of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which is clamouring for the creation of a sovereign state out of Nigeria.
“What the Buhari administration has done to the arms-wielding bandits is worse than being declared as terrorists.
“Do you know that there is a subsisting order by the President that any arms-wielding, AK-47 bandits should be shot on sight.
“I am saying yes, IPOB has been proscribed by law of the land, there is no shoot-on-sight order on IPOB. There is nothing to suggest that these bandits are treated preferentially,” Shehu said.
Explaining how the bandits were being dealt with, the presidential aide said, “The Nigerian Air Force is busy bombing locations, the military is there on the ground, exchanging fire for fire, taking them out in hundreds, that is certainly not treating them (bandits) lightly.
“Before President Muhammadu Buhari [assumed office] many Nigerians could not worship on Fridays, mosques were being bombed, on Sundays churches were being bombed, motor parks and public gatherings.”