President Muhammadu Buhari has given specific orders to military commanders to shoot non-security personnel armed with AK-47 rifles, his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, has said.
Shehu disclosed this in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service on Wednesday.
“The president has ordered security forces to go into the bushes and shoot whoever they see with sophisticated weapons like AK-47,” Shehu said.
Shehu declared that Buhari is committed to ending the senseless killings in Zamfara and other parts of the country.
Bearing the dangerous AK-47 riffle by herdsmen has become a contentious issue in the country after they have been linked to the rising cases of kidnapping, murder, rape, and other violent crimes across the country.
Shehu added that the “no-fly zone” order on the Zamfara airspace announced on Tuesday by the government was based on reports that helicopters were flown in by gangs engaged in illegal mining of gold deposits in the state and that the criminal gangs, in turn, provide arms to bandits in exchange.
