Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that the government is working towards the amendment of the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons and Goods within the countries in the sub-region in order to address the challenge of banditry.
The Protocol was adopted in 1979 by the Authority of Heads of States and Government of ECOWAS.
Mohammed said on Channels Television programme on Saturday that most of the bandits and criminal herdsmen terrorizing the country were not Nigerians.
The minister explained that their entry into Nigeria through the land borders could not be checked because of the ECOWAS Protocol that allows trans-human.
“The ECOWAS Protocols allows trans-human between all the ECOWAS countries. That is why we are thinking of seriously reviewing the ECOWAS Protocols in that respect.
“What we find out today is that a lot of criminalities have been introduced through the herdsmen and trans-human,’’ he said.
According to the minister, the criminal herdsmen and bandits also have access to sophisticated weapons because of the proliferation and smuggling of small arms and light weapons across the sub-region.
“The issue of smuggling of small and light arms is a very serious one and it has to do with border control,” he said.
Speaking on the farmer-herders clashes, insurgency, banditry and kidnapping in the country, the minister said that these insecurity challenges did not start during the current administration and that the challenges built-up gradually over many years and were aggravated by climate change, urbanization and the shrinking of Lake Chad which supported agriculture in seven countries in the sun-region.
On the rescue of abducted students of the Government Science College Kagara and their staff in Niger State, Mohammed said that no ransom would be paid for the release of the abducted staff and students of College.
He disclosed that the government has put in place various strategies to contain banditry, insurgency and kidnapping and that some of these measures are kinetic, while others are non-kinetic.
GIK/APA