Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, has recommended bombing forests by the Nigerian military as an effective way to end banditry in the country once and for all.
El-Rufai made the recommendation at a dialogue: “Financing Safe Schools: Creating Safe Learning Communities” in Abuja, yesterday, where he claimed his other colleagues were in agreement that bandits must be completely wiped out.
“Our position as governors and we are unanimous in this because we, the northern states’ governors, met with the president on this subject…our unanimous position is to wipe out the bandits. We must go into these forests, nobody living in that forest is innocent, and just kill them all. It is the only way to end this.
“We need the combination of air power, and we need troops on the ground augmented by local expertise and knowledge. We need just one, two, three months operation to just try to kill all the bandits. It’s the only way to stop this. So long as these bandits are being paid, it’ll remain a business. So the only option that we have is to ensure that we kill them all.”
While many may disagree, the Kaduna governor claimed there has been a decline in the operation of bandits across the northern part of the country.
“I’m very happy that the chief of air staff has been bombing them. So, you’ll see there’s a decline in banditry. What you see is the coordinated action with air power, use of drones.”
He advised that more advanced weapons must be acquired to make their operations more efficient.
“I think the security agencies also need more advanced technology. The Air force needs more drones. Drones are much cheaper than planes and there are drones now that can carry missiles. Because they (bandits) know when they hear the sound of the aircraft and hide in the bushes. But drones can be more targeted, more selective and quiet. And drones can also fly in circumstances that airplanes cannot due to bad weather.”
He added that banditry can also be stopped if people stopped negotiating with and paying them ransoms.
“People ask if my child was kidnapped and I say that I won’t pay, it is a personal decision, which we do not all support. So, the only way to stop banditry is to kill them all,” he said.