Recently, I read the declaration attributed to the excellent governor of Zamfara State, Bello Muhammad. The governor lamented the mayhems suffered by the people of Zamfara State. Arguably, the governor insisted that it was time for his people to arm themselves for self-protection and defense of Nigerian democracy. His clarion call echoes in other regions of Nigeria. The governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, faces the same predicaments, but he has always summoned the federal government, particularly President Buhari, to act. In Imo State, Governor Hope Uzodinma engages in stakeholders’ meetings to assuage the scourge of insecurity.
The new governor of Anambra State, Charles C. Soludo, battles the bane of terror in his own land. Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel lamented the behavior of the federal police command in his state against the indiscriminate favors toward terrorists and smugglers of dangerous weapons of destruction into Akwa Ibom State. Elsewhere in Kaduna, Kwara, Borno, Taraba, Katsina, and other states, Nigeria’s citizens fear terrorists, herders, bandits, kidnappers, and various kinds of criminal groups. People worry about moving from one area of the country to the other.
In this opinion today, I present an argument that all Nigerians deserve to live a life free from pain. It is the human right and natural right of every person around the world to be protected from terror. Nigerians have the fundamental and undeniable right to be safe in their homes and elsewhere in the federation. As I pen this piece, the news circulated that our executive president’s convoy, while traveling in the state of Katsina, was ambushed by unknown insurgents. If this depraved act could happen to the president, imagine what the ordinary citizens are going through in our nation. The chief executive president has maximum protection from the armed guards assigned to protect him. Nigerians pay for their president to be protected from willful attackers with military weapons.
The citizens of Nigeria should also be extended some minimum arrangements for protection from killers. Governor Bello Muhammad is correct and should be congratulated for seeking help for the people of Zamfara to arm themselves for self-protection. Nigerians can no longer continue to sit back and wait for the authorities in Abuja to shield them from determined, well-armed, and well-funded extremists who are out to slaughter them.
The Nigerian citizens also have a vital role in making their self-defense needs and concerns known to the government.
I propose that President Buhari should sign an emergency executive order allowing Nigeria’s citizens to liberally purchase arms. The president should also offer legislation through the auspices of the Ministry of Justice to constitutionally grant Nigerians the right to keep and bear arms. The legislators can also start the process for the president’s endorsement. The governors, as the chief security officers of their respective states, must demand such legislation. They must amend their constitutions to include the right to self-defense. The Nigerian citizens also have a vital role in making their self-defense needs and concerns known to the government. If Nigerians fail to change and evolve with the institution of new-fangled protection guarantees, no one can sleep or travel peacefully in Nigeria. Such realities of insecurity in Nigeria exist only in a lawless society.
Have Nigerians forgotten that the essential value of any government is to protect its citizens from harm? The reason to have a government, as Thomas Hobbes reflected, is because human beings are cruel, and left alone without control could cause disorder in society. Even as an absolutist feudalist who preferred supreme power of the state, in the Leviathan, Hobbes acknowledged that humans are malicious and should be restrained.
One of the ways to control the enemies in our backyards is to allow citizens to arm themselves for self-defense. It is not arming against the government but building and equipping citizens to protect themselves from organized killers in our lands. That is the minimum the government could offer to the citizens. The government possesses no absolute right to prevent its citizens from self-protection. Since the sponsors of terror in Nigeria are allowed to use the funds they had accumulated to sponsor havoc to destabilize Nigeria, the right to stop citizens from self-defense becomes void and illegitimate. Nigerians deserve protection from domestic and foreign sponsors of terrorism.
An intellectual evolution, not a revolution, is what Nigeria needs.
I must say that today, we lack the fearlessness of intellectuals such as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, and Dele Giwa. We desperately need the reemergence of intellectuals like Frantz Fanon and Cesare Beccaria and the Pan-African politicians and scholars to energize the government to see the truth about the suffering of innocent Nigerians. An intellectual evolution, not a revolution, is what Nigeria needs. Our leaders desperately deserve different opinions and advice. Good advice in government cannot emerge objectively only from a monolithic group. As Governor Wike had noted in one of his speeches, Nigeria belongs to all of us. Leaders need divergent perspectives to formulate a proper course of action for the nation’s progress.
The intellectuals should pen with wrath that Nigerians have the natural right to a peaceful existence, burdening less distress from daily carnage or killing fields. Life should also matter in Nigeria. In the face of nefarious tyranny, Nigerians deserve to have arms to protect and defend themselves from anarchy.
To conclude, the right to have and possess arms for self-protection is deep-rooted in the human rights principles recognized globally and by the United Nations (UN). Self-defense is a documented exception to the use of punitive force by the UN Charter under Article 51. The right to self-defense is inviolable, indissoluble, indubitable, and inalienable, and it must not be denied to Nigerians. Borrowing from John Locke’s theorizing, Nigerians, like their counterparts in the world, are bestowed with freedom and the natural right to exist without hindrance from any government. Nigerians deserve to live a life free from fear, which is a foundation of the world’s self-governing nations. An executive order, followed by legislation permitting Nigerians to carry arms for self-protection, will definitely add to the president’s legacy. Furthermore, the country can engage in the devolution of powers that will bring security protection closer to the citizens. The provision of self-defense in the Nigerian constitution is limited in a country where only sponsored terrorists to have dangerous arsenals.
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■ Dr. Onwudiwe, a Professor of Criminology at the Texas Southern University is on the EDITORIAL BOARD of the WAP
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