President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday gave orders to security agents to shoot anyone found carrying AK-47 illegally.
The senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu, who stated on the Hausa Service of the BBC, quoted the president as ordering the deployment of kinetic warfare against the outlaws.
“The president has ordered security forces to go into the bushes and shoot whoever they see with sophisticated weapons like AK-47.
“He ordered that whoever is seen with terrible weapons at all should be shot immediately,” he said.
He added that helicopters that violate the ‘no fly zone’ slammed on Zamfara State will also be brought down as the government goes tough on banditry and other criminal activities in the country.
On Tuesday’s declaration of Zamfara State as a no-fly zone, Shehu said the federal government took the decision following intelligence that arms were being transported to the bandits with private jets.
He stated that private jets were being used to cart away gold from the state to Dubai, which, according to him, prompted the ban on mining activities, also announced on Tuesday.
“These jets are being used to pick up gold that is being mined in some parts of Zamfara and exported. This is strong because at the moment, there is a Nigerian gold market in Dubai.
“The government is losing, the people of this country are losing, that’s why it is said that gold mining is banned for those who are not made by the government,” Shehu said.
Asked if the president’s directive to security agencies to go after abductors of the Zamfara schoolgirls and bring them to justice is not too weak, Shehu said: “What can be stronger than the fact that the President has directed the operatives to shoot anyone seen with dangerous weapons like AK-47, on sight, in as much as the person is not a security operative.
“Government is doing this with all seriousness. The president equally directed that the security should go after them and kill them except they lay down their arms.”
