FG TO BAN COMMERCIAL MOTORCYCLES AND MINING ACTIVITIES NATIONWIDE.
Written by AIGBOKHAEBHO OKHUELEIGBE on July 22, 2022
The federal government has disclosed that it would place a ban on motorcycles and mining activities across the federation.
Attorney general of the federation and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, disclosed this to State House correspondents after the National Security Council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday.
According to him, such action would eliminate sources of funding for the terrorists and bandits in Nigeria.
Malami who was at the briefing with his Interior ministry and Police Affairs counterparts, Rauf Aregbesola and Mohammed Dingyadi respectively, said it was targeted at logistics used by the terrorists in carrying out their nefarious activities.
Malami said these logistics include motorcycles used for movement, and mining which provides them with the money to fund their arms supply.
The federal government is now looking at ways to inhibit their actions by blocking the sources already identified.
The issues deliberated borders on one – the logistics being used by the terrorists, Boko Haram, and bandits among others in the act of executing their unfortunate act of terrorism and terrorizing the country.
The government would look into that possibility with particular regard to the restriction on the use and distribution of motorcycles which is the most conventional logistical means being deployed by terrorists.
Again, issues of funding of the terrorism and the terrorism act were discussed. As you rightly know, recently the government under the leadership of President Buhari had indeed assented to certain bills inclusive of the money laundering, prevention, and prohibition act, among others.
With the passage of that law, and assented to, the conventional means of terrorist funding and financing were substantially and drastically addressed and that led to forensic analysis of and identification of certain personalities that were in one way or the other connected with terrorism funding and financing.
But then, innovations were brought into it, into the terrorists funding and financing, inclusive of the use of mineral resources, mining for example, among others. And indeed, ransom which conventionally has been taken by the terrorists, and then the need arises to now look into those frontiers that are being considered by the terrorists, in order to address them accordingly.
