Security File: AK-47 for sale in Benue State? By Ben Okezie

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, is known among other governors of our time as very vocal, a governor that does not hide his feelings, especially when it affects his state. Since the invasion of armed hooligans, popularly known as bandits and Fulani herdsmen, who kill, main and destroy property and farmlands, he has been one of the few northern state executives that have been consistent in his fearless vocal condemnation of these merciless killings. No wonder many have tilted their sympathy to the grief and outpouring of sorrow of the people of the state and others in the same shoes. The people go to sleep but are not sure of what the night has in stock as many could fall victim to the night maunders.

Like a drowning swimmer who is ready to hold tight to any saving object, so is Samuel Ortom, who, obviously, out of frustration and concern for his people, urged the Federal Government to allow responsible citizens to protect themselves with AK-47 rifles and other guns as part of measures to curb the rising insecurity in Nigeria. (Mr. Governor, not in Nigeria but in the north). What is of concern to security observers is the call by a governor who ought to know better, no matter how deplorable the situation.

First, he was voted into office to protect the people by rubbing minds with the security agencies in his domain. Asking people to gear up and arm themselves is tantamount to an invitation to chaos and anarchy. One might ask the governor, by asking the people to arm themselves, maybe he has already opened an AK-47 rifles shop where the people can go and buy weapons? It is more interesting that the governor added in his statement urging the Federal Government to “grant licences to responsible citizens to carry sophisticated weapons like the AK-47.”

This statement has further exposed the governor as a politician who knows next to nothing about security. The AK-47 is officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova, it is a gas-operated, 7.62×39mm assault rifle developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov, used by security agencies across the world. It replaced lesser rifles like the Mack-4, Berreta, except single-barrel, double-barrel and pump-action rifles, which could be licensed by only the Nigeria Police.

Since the inception of democratic government in 1999, there has been proliferation of arms and ammunition around Nigeria. After the Nigerian civil war and the Niger Delta uprising and, later, the Boko Haram insurgency that opened the country’s flanks to Al Shabaab, Al-Qaeda and ISIS West Africa, arms proliferation has continued. The situation looks worrisome with each passing day. In condemning the governors’ call to let private citizens bear arms, it is expedient to also frown at the nonchalant attitude of the Federal Government who surprisingly looked the other way when people were illegally arming themselves and there was no stiff punishment meted to them. Maybe Governor Ortom reasoned that, since the Federal Government and its agencies could not stop illegal possession of firearms, why then would the same Federal Government show up when “responsible” citizens bear arms to protect themselves?

Mr. Governor, two wrongs do not make a right. Who are these responsible citizens that can buy AK-47 that costs N600,000? Was the governor thinking that these responsible people were the youths who cannot fend for themselves by having three square meals on their family table? If N600,000 is peanuts to the governor, many youths cannot afford such luxury. In a dire situation as the northern states have found themselves in, the governors should be asking a simple question, “How did we get to this stage and what should we have done that we did not do ?”

Providing security is a joint approach. While the Federal Government provides the funding, the security agencies carry out the operation, while members of the public provide information and encourage the servicemen. The governor’s call is a sign of weakness and failure. He should emulate President Muhammadu Buhari who, despite the call by Nigerians that he should remove the service chiefs, is still undaunted in believing in their ability to end the rising insecurity in the land. As the leader, there are certain qualities he must have seen in them that many are not seeing. He knew they were the ones that rescued the country when Boko Haram controlled 18 local government areas of the North East and decimated them by making it impossible for these terrorists to operate as they were used to, bombing soft targets.

That was when the federal capital was under siege, yet the government in power at the time never considered calling on the people to arm themselves. I had written in one of my columns when the Fulani herdsmen were on rampage in the Middle Belt that Benue State boasts of hundreds of retired security agents. What is wrong in the Benue State governor using the security vote to recruit them into a vigilance group in every local government under strict supervision of the local police?

However, despite the insecure situation in the state, the Nigeria Police ought to unleash its well trained combative Mobile Force on the terrain to restore peace to the people of Benue so that their governor would not be left to think out other ways of solving the security challenges in his state.