The House of Representatives has charged Nigeria’s security agencies to ensure the enforcement of the banditry proscription order of the federal government.
The September 2021 Proscription Order published in the official gazette 108, declared the activities of bandits and similar groups as terrorism and proscribed in any part of Nigeria.
The House also mandated the security agencies to rise up and curb the rising killing of innocent persons across Benue communities, especially those on the border with Nasarawa state.
The resolution came on Thursday, following adoption of a motion on: “Need to stop the renewed increasing terrorist attacks and gruesome killings by armed herdsmen and bandits in Benue communities”, sponsored by Hon. Benjamin Mzondu, who stated that suspected herdsmen and bandits unleashed terror on a community in his Constituency on Monday, killed five persons and left several others with different degrees of injuries.
He further disclosed that the suspected herdsmen and bandits attacked settlements in Guma Local Government Area of the State in the early hours of Thursday (today) and killed six persons and injured 20 people.
The lawmaker expressed concern about, “the suspicious collusion of Army and other security agencies in the attacks, as an Army unit is stationed less than five kilometers from the location of the where the herdsmen and bandits operated for more than two hours without any intervention from security agencies.”
In adopting the motion, the House commiserated with the families of those killed in the attacks, and urged the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to send relief materials to those affected.
