Why Nigerians Should Be Allowed To Carry Arms – MBF
The National President of the Middle Belt Forum MBF, Dr. Bitrus Pogu has said Nigerians should be allowed to carry arms in view of the killings in the country.
The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen.Taoreed Lagbaja, had dismissed calls for self defence on Sunday, while featuring on Channels Television’s end-of- year programme tagged “2023: Year of Transition”, saying “I do not support that. I think that is a call for anarchy.”
According to him, the Nigerian Army can defend the country and as such, there is no need for self-defence.
But, the MBF President on Monday countered the COAS saying the directive would not be in the overall interest of the people.
Pogu maintained that any order restraining Nigerians from carrying some form of arms to defend themselves while marauders move about with sophisticated weapons with which they kill Nigerians with impunity, will amount to a conspiracy against the people.
He argued that there should be a rethink of that statement since the security agencies had not been able to adequately protect Nigerians from the marauders.
He said, “I completely disagree because the security agencies are not adequately protecting Nigerians an Nigerians are being killed like Chickens.
“Before now Nigerians are allowed to carry some category of arms which are not up to the military grade. And if they have such arms, at least they can protect themselves.
“But when you have people in the bushes with sophisticated weapons whose location is known and yet they are left there; even areas are left for them; and yet they want Nigerians to stay as chickens to be killed by these criminals. It means there is collusion to have Nigerians killed.
“Nigerians should be allowed to carry at least some arms to defend themselves. Before now we had some category of arms, short guns and so on, which were allowed.
“This should be allowed and should remain allowed. Anything short of that means there is a conspiracy against Nigerians.
“Whoever made that statement should go and have a rethink. Already there are category of arms allowed for Nigerians and it should not be stopped. In fact Nigerians should have higher level of arms to defend themselves because it has been proven that security agencies have not been able to protect Nigerians.”
Hafsoh Isiaq is a graduate of Linguistics. An avid writer committed to creative, high-quality research and news reportage. She has considerable experience in writing and reporting across a variety of platforms including print and online.
