The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has explained why bandits have yet to be proscribed in spite of the havoc they have wreaked on the country.
He said that this was so because the bandits do not have a name by which they could be identified.
Mohammed, who is a lawyer, spoke Wednesday during an appearance on AIT‘s Kaakaki programme.
According to him, the way bandits are treated ought to be considered more important than whether or not they are proscribed.
“You proscribe known groups with names. You can’t just proscribe an unknown group legally.
“Secondly, it’s not whether they are proscribed or not, it is the way they are treated. Does the government actually treat them with kid gloves? The answer is no,” the minister said.
Mohammed also said that bandits and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) do not have the same characteristics and so the same treatment could not be applied to both.
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The minister said that bandits were criminals while IPOB were after Nigeria’s disintegration.
“When a group is championing a course for the disintegration of Nigeria… A group like IPOB (that) does not even recognise Nigeria as a state, sets up its own army and think it is a sovereign state is different from bandits and criminals. Please, don’t compare apples and oranges,” Mohammed stated.
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