Banditry: FG considers nationwide ban on motorcycles, mining activities

The Federal Government of Nigeria may ban the use of motorcycles nationwide following increasing security challenges threatening the corporate existence of the country.

This is coming as the National Security Council on Thursday announced that it is considering a nationwide ban on motorcycles and mining activities in the country.

The meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the State House in Abuja, said although they are mindful of the pains it would cause, it was part of strategy to curb terrorists activities, checkmate loopholes and cut off their sources of funding.

Addressing state house correspondents after the meeting, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami stated that investigations are still ongoing especially to establish the correlation between mining and motorcycles which they suspect provide funding for the supply of arms to the terrorists.

Malami said that terrorists had moved from the conventional ways of funding their activities to mining and ransom taking.

He accepted that the economic consequences of the proposed resolutions, particularly the motorcycle ban, would be enormous but noted that it has become imperative in order to guarantee the nation’s security.

He said “Terrorist groups, in particular in Nigeria, are increasingly interested in controlling areas of production of gold. The opportunistic nature of these activities is tied strongly to the fact that gold is often the favoured mineral of the terrorist groups as many of these groups use this to secure a source of funding for future operations.”