In a country where security personnel are trigger-happy and imbued with impunity, President Buhari’s order to shoot at sight, any person carrying an AK-47 riffle, appears to be godsent. The President’s order is apparently a reaction to AK-47 wielding herdsmen or even as some suggest, militant challengers of the AK-47 wielding herdsmen. Across the country, guns appear to have become a freely available accompaniment both for cattle herders who have been accused of inflicting grievous attacks in terrorist fashion against citizens or even militant groups that have emerged to challenge the cattle herders.
Senior Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu had disclosed in a television interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa Service on Wednesday, March 3, that the President has ordered “that whoever is seen with terrible weapons at all, should be shot immediately.” The President’s directive is however, arbitrary and unconstitutional. There is no law that supports security officials shooting anybody at sight. The law requires that all persons committing an offence, be apprehended and made to face the rigours of the law. It is also presumptuous to think that the President’s order refers only to AK-47 wielding herdsmen without thinking that the President may also or indeed be specifically targeting the various vigilante groups that have emerged across the country to challenge terrorist herdsmen.
Persons commending the President for giving this order, including Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom may not have averted their minds to the unconstitutionality of the President’s order. While Nigerians would like to see an end to the unconscionable, tragic and heinous acts and crimes of herdsmen across the country, lawyers and human rights activists believe that the most sustainable way of ridding the country of these criminal actions and elements is their arrest and prosecution in the law courts. A Government seeking to end violence by inflicting its own violence in disregard to the rule of law, can only expand the jungle space.