Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Professor Itse Sagay, has said ordinary Nigerians should be allowed to bear firearms in order to protect themselves.
To Sagay, who passed this as a word of advjce for President Buhari and Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, this step would help address the daunting security issues in the country.
He spoke in an interview with Daily Independent.
According to him, the Federal Government is 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.
He said, *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.”
