General Christopher Musa, Chief of Defence Staff, has expressed worries over the activities of bandits and their collaborators.
While speaking during an interview with Daily Trust, Musa said some medical doctors are even providing treatment for terrorists in bushes where they operate from.
Also, the army chief accused some women in the North of engaging in pimping ladies to bandits at night all because of money.
He called for the support of Nigerians to effectively combat the issue of banditry, adding that the military is not finding it easy in rooting out the bandits as a result of their collaborators in the society.
Musa said, “We are dealing with an unconventional warfare, which has to do with ideology. And you cannot look at somebody’s face and know what ideology is in his mind.
“But banditry is pure criminality, which is different from Boko Haram.
“Criminals work together, so good people must equally join hands to fight evil. The mistake we make is thinking that only the military should do it. No.
Who are the people funding those guys? People are trading with them. There are informants – those who call to tell them the movement of troops.
“That’s their business and they make good money.
“In fairness, people are really reaching out to us. And it has helped us a lot. But we still have some people trading with them.
“We have doctors who go to the bush to treat them. In the North, we have women who carry their fellow women to go and give them at night to get money. It is that bad.”
When asked to react to video clips of some of the bandits with musicians going to the bush, General Musa said, ”It is true. And this is because maybe if the man goes to sing somewhere they might give him N5,000 and he could sing for those guys and they could give him N100,000 or N200,000, he forgets that it is blood money”.
