Veteran scholar and lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to allow Nigerians to carry arms.
He said this was the solution to the problems of insecurity that had permeated the country.
In an interview with DAILY INDEPENDENT, Sagay, who is the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, noted that neither the land nor waterways are safe.
He said:
“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.” he said
