Why FG hasn’t declared bandits as terrorists after court order –Malami

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), says the Federal Government is yet to officially designate bandits as terrorists because the government is following international best practices.

He said his office was in the process of gazetting a court judgement that ordered the government to declare bandits as terrorists, adding that the process would be concluded in a matter of days.

Malami spoke on Tuesday as a guest on NTA Good Morning Nigeria Show monitored by The PUNCH.

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States in the North-West geopolitical zone including Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna have been ravaged with banditry in the last year. The nefarious activities of the marauders have also spilt into the North Central and other zones in the country. The bandits have killed hundreds of innocent persons, kidnapped several others including schoolchildren, with some still in their custody, while some are nursing injuries sustained during the attacks.

There has been clamour by many Nigerians including socio-political groups that bandits should be declared as terrorists like the bloodthirsty Boko Haram insurgent group.

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Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja on November 26, 2021, had granted an ex parte application by the Federal Government for Yan Bindiga (Hausa word for gunmen) and Yan Ta’adda (Hausa word for terrorists) tro be declared as terrorists but the tenure If President Muhammadu Buhari has not done so over a month after.

Whereas in the case of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Malami was able to gazette the designation of IPOB as terrorists on the same day that Justice Abdu Kafarati gave the order on September 20, 2017.

Speaking on Tuesday, Malami said the government acted swiftly in declaring IPOB and Boko Haram as terror groups because of the “threats to lives and properties they have caused in the nation.”