28th August, 2021
The presidency on Saturday opens up on President Muhammadu Buhari not declaring bandits terrorists.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in an interview with BBC News Pidgin,said what the Buhari administration had done to the arms-wielding bandits was worse than being declared as terrorists.
He said there is a subsisting order by the President that any arms-wielding, AK-47 bandits should be shot on sight.
Shehu stated that even though the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB had been proscribed by law of the land, there is no shoot-on-sight order on members of the group.
According to him, the Nigerian Air Force had been busy bombing locations, while the military was launching offensives on the ground, exchanging fire for fire, taking them out in hundreds, saying that is certainly not treating people lightly.
He stated that there had been enormous successes recorded in dealing with bandits and terrorists.
Shehu said Boko Haram terrorists were surrendering today in their thousands, saying this did not just happen, but successes recorded by the military.
He said it was a matter of time, before bandits would be substantially reduced and that the Nigerian state would be safe all over again.