El-Rufai presses Buhari into drone war against bandits

Kaduna Gov Nasir el-Rufai believes the bandits operating in the north have not only gone beyond redemption, they deserve annihilation with greater firepower within a month or two.

He noted that deploying aircraft and boots on the ground may not work fast enough.

“I think the security agencies also need more advanced technology. The Air force needs more drones,” he said in Abuja August 23.

Drones, he said, are much cheaper than planes, and can even be rigged with missiles.

The US drone base in Niger Republic cost, as of 2019,  $100 million, and larger larger armed systems such as the Global Hawk cost up to $15,000  per hour.

Nigeria budgeted $1 billion as intervention fund to boost the war against terrorists in the northeast in 2018. It still waiting to receive the remainder of the 12 Tucano fighter jets it ordered for in the US while problem of accountability lingers at home..

“They can be more targeted, more selective and quiet. And drones can also fly in circumstances that airplanes cannot due to bad weather.”

He believed it is the only way the President Muhammadu Buhari government can finish off the criminals within weeks.

Bandits have made life across the northwest unbearable for villages and settlement in ungoverned spaces across the region.