Onanuga calls for vandals of public infrastructure to be shot on sight

Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the president on information and strategy, has called for vandals of public infrastructure to be shot on sight.

Onanuga made the comment on Sunday in a post on X while reacting to a video showing damage to an ongoing federal road project.

“Just shoot these unconscionable vandals and thieves at sight. They are the worst species of citizens,” he wrote.

The video showed men wearing reflective jackets bearing the insignia of the federal ministry of works explaining how vandals cut and removed starter bars, also known as shoulder rods, at the reconstruction site of the Ibadan–Ilesa/Ife federal highway.

One of the officials in the footage said the vandals removed the sections of iron bars they could access and cut out others completely, despite the presence of security patrols at the site.

“What happens is that we have some people vandalising these starter bars. You can see that they are pressed in some places, but the vandals cut them out and remove the ones they can take,” the official said.

“They cut the ones that are very solid and remove the ones they can remove entirely. These are starter bars. This is a very bad thing they are doing. These are vandals and we have security patrols.”

The Ibadan–Ilesa/Ife highway is one of the major road projects currently being reconstructed by the federal government.