Nigeria Content Online

Nigeria is one of
the countries that consider the freedom to acquire, carry, and use
offensive weapons inimical to national security as well as the security
of lives and property. The basic argument underlying this arms control
is that granting citizens the freedom to carry arms in an already
volatile environment is to make the state of insecurity in the country
worse.

Contrary views on
the prohibition argue that: the law only caters for the security of
those in power as well as that of the rich and supposedly important
people in society, while making worse the insecurity of ordinary
unarmed Nigerians; the law makes the possession of arms in an insecure
society rather attractive, as citizens would secretly seek to acquire
such arms “in case” the law is unable to protect them; the law
ironically provides a boost to the illegal arms trade across Nigeria’s
porous borders with other African countries, just like it happens when
commodities are banned; and so on.

These arguments
made for and against the possession of offensive weapons are now well
known to many people. The point that should interest us is that many
Nigerians have generally ignored the prohibition and have gone ahead to
acquire and keep arms, sometimes using them openly, believing either
that the law itself is unfair or that their personal protection is
their own business, not that of the agents of the law.

The consequence of
the ignoring of the gun law is that in recent times citizens,
especially the rich and influential, keep a private armoury the same
way they buy and keep pieces of furniture in their houses; hire, arm,
and maintain private armies to guard themselves and their property; and
no doubt have guardrooms where they could detain or make their victims
disappear from the face of the earth. Some professional unions have
also gradually metamorphosed into armed militant gangs that could move
around showing off their weapons and shooting at whim, sometimes
engaging the police in a test of firepower.

The police know
these gangs stock arms but appear reluctant to take decisive measures
to ferret out the weapons and arrest the union members. As expected, if
these gun-toting union members shoot and kill non-members that they
have problems with, they turn the guns on their own members whom they
want out of the way. The union leader, who himself lives by the gun,
may easily fall by the gun, especially because assassinating him is one
quickest way of getting him out of the way so that someone else would
take his position and continue stealing the funds of the union.

Perhaps the
difficulty of the police to deal decisively with these private armies
of some unions in Nigeria is as a result of the fact that such unions
offer contract services to Nigerian politicians and the nouveau riche
in the country. They appear easy and cheap to hire for contract
killings, as well as the dirty business of causing mayhem and
terrorizing the population during elections. How would a state governor
who has been using such private armies suddenly turn and fight them? It
would take a special tactician in government to demobilize or crush an
army that has helped him in capturing power.

Under the excuse of
keeping vigilante groups, some states and communities in Nigeria
acquire and put dangerous weapons — pump action, AK47, revolvers, etc —
in the hands of retired and serving criminals who, once in a while,
snuff out the lives of innocent citizens. Of course, such vigilante
groups, in living up to “expectation”, make sure they protect the
interest of the big men that have created the local “army.” Vigilante
groups also sometimes have the secret mandate of watching oga’s
political opponents, making sure their vigilance means that such
targets are crippled, if they cannot be made to disappear. Who knows,
sometimes vigilante could try out a war game on a helpless bank, at
least to help the money in the vault regain its freedom. And, once in a
while, vigilante eats the bone hung on its neck, kidnapping some
relatives of the ogas, to find out whether some handsome naira could
make the panic journey from the mansion vault to the inner recesses of
the African jungle.

No one teaches the
wild dog when and how to reverse its roles when it thinks that enough
crumbs are not falling from oga’s table. And like any mafia
arrangement, any oga that whacks people should expect to be whacked
someday, sometimes by the very hit men in his employ.

Now the elections are here again and one could see the private
armies servicing the weapons and getting them ready for action. One
could hear the crackle and rattle of the guns of “murderland” as they
clear their throats to speak death to targets in the political
struggle. Let us hope your innocence, as a Nigerian, is more innocent
than mine.