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Aghadaghebalu Clement Ese (Handout) |
I met this young man on Instagram and he convinced me to read his piece. I loved it so much as I am a gun violence activist and believe you should still have guns for protection and not for crimes. However, Nigeria does not have a second amemdment law like the United States with respect to the right to bear arms freely. I decided to publish his article on my blog, something I never do. There are some youth who really impress me with their thoughts. Read this awesome piece below.
The Availability of firearms and light weapons in our contemporary Nigerian society : How do they found their way in ?
The availability of small arms and light weapons in our communities is a threat to our National security. Any society with high numbers of illegal arms is prone to violence ( electoral violence, domestic violence and regular communal crisis.
Take Rivers State Nigeria for example, the ongoing amnesty programs for cultists in a sub-region of the state had a recorded a massive turnout. A total number of eight thousands five hundred and seventy-two (8572) arms of different categories were handed over to the State governor today.
According to United Nations Office For Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)
Illicit flows of small arms and light weapons undermine security and the rule of law. They are often a factor behind the forced displacement of civilians and massive human rights violations.
This region in Rivers state has been experiencing internal torments, as those who has access to guns and other weapons became rulers of the day and rulers of the night. The news of death became a normal news in the airwaves, regular cult crashes and electoral violence became a normal life in that area until the governor finally got the wisdom to initiate the Amnesty programs .
The question on our lips now is how did these weapons find their way into our society?
Agreed that weapons are expensive and those that are selling them as licensed gun dealers in our societies don't just sell to any person. If this is true it means only those who have political influence and economic power are those who have access to them.
90 percent of illegal arms in Nigeria found their way in during elections ( ref. Criminology and Justice system By Dambazau 2006), power seeking politicians will buy guns and then handover the guns to thugs to be used in electoral rigging and malpractices and after the election season they will find it too difficult to recover the guns because the boys now view the guns as another means to get to the top because our society celebrates wealth irrespective of the source.
We must not also dispute the fact that some evil minded humans can go any miles to get weapons whenever they are in need of them.
It will interest you to know that top Countries within the United Nations who are preaching against violence of any kind, in every part of the globe are the same countries that are selling this weapons because of their capitalist mindsets
As a report from the control arms campaign, Shattered Lives, mentions:
"The five permanent members of the UN Security Council—France, Russia, China, the UK, and the USA—together account for 88 per cent of the world’s conventional arms exports; and these exports contribute regularly to gross abuses of human rights.”
The guns that were retrieved in the case of Rivers state may one day go back into the society to achieve some certain personal interest in a world that is controlled by Capitalists if they are not handed over to our national armoury.
#StopTheViolence
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