Insecurity: Allow Nigerians bear arms to defend themselves - Professor Itse Sagay advises FG

By Our Correspondent

 

The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Professor Itse Sagay, has advised President Buhari and Inspec­tor General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to allow ordinary Nigerians to bear firearms in order to protect themselves.

Sagay gave this advice during an interview with Daily Independent. He said the Federal Government was overwhelmed by various security challenges such as Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, herdsmen at­tacks, and others and so it has become necessary for the government to allow Nigerians to carry arms so they can defend themselves when attacked.

According to him, unpro­voked attacks especially on villages by bandits will drasti­cally reduce in the country if the communities are allowed to arm themselves with weap­ons to defend themselves.

“The country has become so dangerous. All sorts of things are happening nowa­days. You have kidnappers, bandits, Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram. The reality is that there is nowhere that is safe in the country. Traveling by road today is a very risky endeavor that one will hard­ly try. So, there is total insecu­rity in the country.

I don’t know what has gone wrong, why our people have become so violent and savage. Individuals no lon­ger feel safe outside his own house. I am not even sure that one is absolutely safe in his own house.

What I will like to suggest to the government is that they should allow ordinary Nigeri­ans to carry arms. Everybody who wants to carry arms as a form of self-defence should be allowed to do so. This is necessary so that when these bandits and miscreants attack them, they will know that the person they attacked has the capacity to defend himself.

All these restrictions on owning weapons should be lifted. Let the generality of the public be allowed to own weapons, especially in all those villages where they are being massacred. Their men should be given weapons so that when the attackers come, they will also be given a chal­lenge which may discourage them in future.'' he said