In a country where security personnel are trigger-happy and imbued with impunity, President Buhari\u2019s order to shoot at sight, any person carrying an AK-47 riffle, appears to be godsent. The President\u2019s 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.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senior Special Adviser to the President on\nMedia and Publicity, Garba Shehu had disclosed in a television interview with\nthe British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa Service on Wednesday, March 3,\nthat the President has ordered \u201cthat whoever is seen with terrible weapons at\nall, should be shot immediately.\u201d The President\u2019s directive is however,\narbitrary and unconstitutional. There is no law that supports security\nofficials shooting anybody at sight. The law requires that all persons\ncommitting an offence, be apprehended and made to face the rigours of the law.\nIt is also presumptuous to think that the President\u2019s order refers only to\nAK-47 wielding herdsmen without thinking that the President may also or indeed\nbe specifically targeting the various vigilante groups that have emerged across\nthe country to challenge terrorist herdsmen. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Persons commending the President for giving\nthis order, including Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom may not have averted\ntheir minds to the unconstitutionality of the President\u2019s order. While\nNigerians would like to see an end to the unconscionable, tragic and heinous\nacts and crimes of herdsmen across the country, lawyers and human rights\nactivists believe that the most sustainable way of ridding the country of these\ncriminal actions and elements is their arrest and prosecution in the law\ncourts. A Government seeking to end violence by inflicting its own violence in\ndisregard to the rule of law, can only expand the jungle space. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a country where security personnel are trigger-happy and imbued with impunity, President Buhari\u2019s order to shoot at sight, any person carrying an AK-47 riffle, appears to be godsent. The President\u2019s 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[250,251,249,252,254,253],"class_list":["post-1958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ak-47-riffle","tag-benue-state-governor","tag-buharis-shoot-at-sight-order-and-impunity","tag-samuel-ortom","tag-should-be-shot-immediately","tag-that-whoever-is-seen-with-terrible-weapons-at-all"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1960,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958\/revisions\/1960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}