Buhari orders security agents to shoot anyone with AK-47

• Says illegal miners take Zamfara gold with jets

President Muhammadu Buhari has directed security agencies to shoot anyone seen with AK-47 in the bush.

Spokesman for the President, Garba Shehu, disclosed this in an interview with the BBC.

He said the President had also oredered a clampdown on all bandits that refused to surrender.

“The President has ordered security forces to go into the bushes and shoot whoever they see with sophisticated weapons like AK-47,” he said in the interview.

 “He ordered that whoever is seen with terrible weapons at all should be shot immediately,” Shehu said.

He also spoke on the efforts being made to rid Zamfara State and other northern states of bandits, saying the government was resorting to lethal force.

Shehu said the Federal Government declared Zamfara a no-fly zone after an intelligence report that arms were being transported to the bandits with private jets.

He said the jets were also used to cart away gold from the state to Dubai, which prompted the ban on mining activities announced on Tuesday.

He said, “These jets are being used to pick up gold that is being mined in some parts of Zamfara and exported.

“There is a Nigerian gold market in Dubai. The government is losing; the people of this country are losing; that’s why it is said that gold mining is banned for those who are not made by the government.”