Democratising ownership and usage of arms will worsen the security challenges
A former Minister of Defence, Lt. General T.Y. Danjuma (rtd) last week asked Nigerians, especially residents of Taraba State (where he hails from) to acquire arms and defend themselves and territories against bandits. This thesis is not new. Since leaving office, Danjuma has repeatedly accused the military and security forces of direct complicity in the spiraling insecurity, especially in his ancestral homeland. And he had on several occasions advocated that citizens bear arms for their self-defence. But Danjuma’s prescription is clearly wrong-headed. Whatever may be his excuse, this is a direct repudiation of the very essence of Nigeria as a nation state and a recipe for anarchy.
However, this may be a generational mindset. Even the current Defence Minister, Bashir Magashi, also a retired general, once urged Nigerians to confront bandits. “It is the responsibility of everybody to keep alert and to find safety when necessary. But we shouldn’t be cowards. At times, the bandits will only come with about three rounds of ammunition, when they fire shots, everybody runs. In our younger days, we stand to fight any aggression coming for us,” Magashi said last year in a clear admission of failure that would have cost him his job in saner climes. “I don’t know why people are running from minor things like that. They should stand and let these people know that even the villagers have the competency and capabilities to defend themselves.”
It is true that the Nigerian state today has been weakened by the proliferation of illegal arms in the hands of sundry non-state actors. But the recipe of universal arms possession flies in the face of the core principle of the Nigerian constitution. Authority to bear military grade arms remains the exclusive preserve of the federal government. The fact of recent spate of insecurity does not devalue or obliterate this fundamental constitutional stipulation.
What Danjuma may not realise is that already, there is a school of thought that the proliferation of illegal sophisticated arms in the hands of ethnic and sectarian militants and warlords is partly the result of direct sponsorship of people who may have used their vantage positions in the public space to equip thugs to advance the pursuit of their personal, regional or ethnic interests in the national contest for political pre-eminence. Therefore, the solution to systemic anarchy can never be to endorse and universalise anarchy.
As a newspaper, we have always advocated a restructuring of the country not in line with the argument of ethnic warlords but rather in a bid to have a system that works for all. For instance, there is an urgent need to strengthen the coercive power of the federal government while recognising the right of component states to limited self-determination without armed threat to the nation. A desirable devolution of powers from federal pre-eminence to stronger component state centres must increase the powers of the latter over policing and internal security responsibilities with a more limited level of lethal armament than the federal force which must continue to be the unquestioned guarantor of our national security.
Democratising ownership and usage of arms even for self-defence purposes will worsen the country’s security challenges. With weak institutions in a society that lacks a culture of gun ownership, it may be a formula for anarchy. However, it is not enough to say that Danjuma is wrong. The sentiment driving his advocacy is shared by many Nigerians in an environment of escalating insecurity and a widely held perception that government is not an impartial arbiter in the management of both the nation’s diversity and the security challenges. We therefore urge President Muhammadu Buhari to demonstrate balance and fairness in handling security-related issues.
