Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has said the only way to end banditry in Nigeria was for the military to kill them all.
El-Rufai said the military should storm forests where bandits stay and bomb the whole place, thereby eliminating them.
He spoke at a dialogue tagged: “Financing Safe Schools: Creating Safe Learning Communities” in Abuja, yesterday.
El-Rufai also disclosed that all governors of the North have agreed that bandits must be wiped out.
He said: “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.”
The Governor also disclosed that the military needed sophisticated weapons to effectively wipe out bandits.
El-Rufai said both land and air powers were needed to confront bandits.
“We need the combination of airpower, 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. What you see is the coordinated action with air power, use of drones,” he added.