The Presidency has said that there is no difference between bandits and Boko Haram Terrorists and President Muhammadu Buhari has been treating them as such.
The Presidency spoke following an Editorial in The Economist, criticising the Buhari Government on several fronts.
The Editorial was titled: “The crime scene at the heart of Africa.”
Reacting in a statement on Sunday night, the Presidency through the Senior Special Assistant to the Presidency on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said The Economist got it wrong on the issue of the bandits operating in the North West of the country.
In the reaction, published elsewhere in full on this news website, Shehu said: “The Economist opinionated and reported on banditry and kidnapping in the North-West.
“While this has been simmering for generations, it is the newest of the organized threats Nigeria faces to her stability.
“But this too The Economist inaccurately described: ‘bandits’ who have the resources and technology to shoot down a military fighter jet are not bandits at all – but rather highly organised crime syndicates with huge resources and weaponry.
“Yet they are essentially no different to Boko Haram in this regard who are now cornered.
“It will take time, but the President is unwavering in his determination to collapse this challenge to public order.”
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