Nasir el-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State, said that local vigilante groups and security groups don’t have the weapons they need to fight bandits.
The governor said that security groups like the Western Nigeria Security Network, which also goes by the codename Amotekun, “are not up to scratch” to deal with bandits.
The governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, told the Federal Government on September 22 that he planned to buy weapons for Amotekun agents.
El-Rufai said this on Thursday when he appeared on the Channels TV show Sunrise Daily. He also said that the Ondo governor’s plan to fight bandits was too simple.
He said that the “sophisticated” non-state actors are too smart for the vigilantes.
“Local security networks can only give information about the local area. “They don’t have guns to fight these guys [the robbers] ,” he said.
“These people can sometimes even beat the army. So, when people say, “I want to get an AK-47 for my Amotekun,” they are being too simple. You have no idea what you’re up against.
“We get it. These guys have a lot of weapons. They are getting sophisticated weapons. They sometimes have better weapons than the military.
“Those vigilantes just don’t cut it.”
