OVERVIEW: Constitutional hindrance, four other reasons Buhari may not approve Gov Ortom’s application for AK-47 licences

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State recently revealed that he would submit an application to President Muhammadu Buhari seeking the president’s approval for arms and ammunition licenses.

The governor stated this after unveiling the state’s security outfit against the onslaught of killer herdsmen, and in efforts to battle the raging insecurity in his home state, which has also become a recurring factor in most parts of the country. Bandits and terrorists have held sway, holding citizens to ransom, and causing people to live in fear.

Ortom is a strong critic of the President, and a leading crusader against the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) particularly due to the spate of killings and bloodletting across the country.

The cloud of insecurity has hung over Nigeria since Buhari was sworn in as President in 2015. He came to power on a campaign promise that he would end the problem. But with less that a year to the end of his eight-year tenure, the problem has gone from bad to worse. The Boko Haram insurgency which has almost consumed the Northeast zone has claimed over 300,000 lives and displaced over a million; banditry and attacks by criminal herders across the country have claimed more lives than Boko Haram.

Benue State is the most hit by violence in the North Central zone after Niger State. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which collects and maps violent events in the world, mapped 456 attacks and 1,692 fatalities in Benue State between January 2018 and August 2022. On New year’s day 2018, herders invaded five communities in the state and killed no fewer than 50 people. Hailed as the Food Basket of the Nation, Benue has become the valley of mass burial sites.

Governor Ortom has been consistent in expressing his helplessness over the misfortune of his people while calling out the federal government for turning a blind eye to their woes. “I cannot rule over dead people,” he once blurted.

The collective failure of the Buhari-led federal government, the Police, and the armed forces to protect Nigerian citizens has forced state governments and community leaders to seek self-help by establishing local security outfits. Defying opposition from Aso Rock, South-West governors blazed the trail on regional security by establishing the Western Nigeria Security Network, codenamed ‘Amotekun’. Afterwards, numerous vigilante groups sprung up in various parts of the country, while some governors also encouraged citizens to procure arms for self-defence against terrorists. These interventions have awakened the constantly suppressed discourse on a state-policing system.

Earlier this month, Ortom inaugurated 500 personnel of the Community Volunteer Guards (Vigilante) and promised to submit an application to the federal government to grant them licenses to carry AK-47 and AK-49 rifles.

“With the takeoff of community Volunteer Guards, I believe that there will be a reduction of terrorism, robbery and other crimes in the state.

“This week, we are going to submit forward a letter to President Buhari for approval to get licences for AK-47 and AK-49 for our security outfit. And we hope to get a favourable consideration from the President”, the governor stated.

Meanwhile, here are four reasons, the Buhari-led federal government may not approve Ortom’s request for licenses for his vigilante group to carry AK-47 rifles.

Read also: QuickRead: Ortom’s move to procure firearms for security outfit. Four other stories we tracked and why they matter

1. The procurement of arms and ammunition like AK-47 rifles, is on the exclusive legislative list. That is, it is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, and it is only the nation’s military and police that are legally mandated to carry such weapon. It would require a constitutional amendment to change the status quo, and if Ortom proceeds to procure the arms, without the President’s approval, he would be breaking the law. The Federal government holds the aces here and could use it as a political tool against Ortom and other state governors.

2. It would mean Buhari conceding to failure: The governor, who has never hidden his mistrust for Aso Rock, perpetually laments the latter’s failure in protecting the estimated five million people and seven ethnic groups inhabiting the state. He has consistently maintained that Buhari is a failure. Acceding to Ortom’s request for firearm license is a concession to failure, something Buhari has never done in his eight years in office despite glaring statistical evidence. He would not want to say that Ortom had been right all along, in his criticisms that the federal government under Buhari has failed to curb the menace of killer herdsmen as well as bandits and terrorists.

3. Agreeing to issue such a license would be an indirect approval of state police, an arrangement, albeit altruistic and seemingly antidotal, that Buhari is opposed to. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, Chairman of the Southern Governors Forum had made a similar request for Amotekun, but Aso Rock would not yield. Although, state police are being considered in the ongoing constitutional amendment process. A bill for the creation of state Police passed the second reading in the House of Representatives last year, and it is currently being deliberated by state houses of assembly across the country. Until the constitution is amended, Ortom may just be on a wild goose chase for ammunition licenses.

4. The use of firearms requires adequate military and psychological training, plus emotional preparations, any of which we are not sure has been provided by the Benue State government to members of the newly birthed security outfit.

Earlier in the year, members of the Benue Hunters and Forest Security, a vigilante group, were caught on tape harassing a lady. They forcefully shaved the young lady’s hair with scissors, while also harassing motorists. Human rights violations like this have infused scepticism into the necessity of having community security outfits.

According to a report titled “Managing Vigilantism in Nigeria: A near-term Necessity” by the International Crisis Group, members of vigilante groups are prone to human rights abuses and vulnerable to capture by politicians and other elites. Their activities “could aggravate intercommunal tensions, and heighten risks of conflict”. Although experts agree that community policing is a panacea to worsening insecurity in Nigeria, there are fears that vigilante groups, while fighting crimes, may at the same time become a security problem themselves.

5. Arms Proliferation: One of the federal government’s approaches to tackling insecurity across the country is the mopping up of arms and ammunition in the hands of social miscreants. This was introduced in 2018, when the then Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris directed Police commands in all states and the FCT to begin mopping up arms.

This may have been informed by revealing data published the year before by the United Nations, which showed that about 70% of illegal firearms circulating in West Africa were in Nigeria.

Although thousands of illegal arms have been recovered across the country since then, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALWs) is a major factor fueling insecurity in Nigeria to date. A 2021 report by SBM Intelligence noted that over six million SALWs are illegally circulating among civilians, non-state actors and criminals in Nigeria.

While the constitution is yet to be amended to decentralise security institutions in the country, mere executive approval for individuals and groups to carry military-like firearms gives genuine concern about the arms getting into the wrong hands.

Since Ortom dumped the ruling APC, he has never hidden his distrust, and dislike for President Buhari, criticizing him fiercely at every opportunity, even though the president is not known for taking criticism lightly no matter how objective, and his cyber dogs have had countless spats with Ortom.

Almost every terror attack in Benue State attracts a vituperation from the governor towards the Presidency, and the president’s media advisers in their response always remind us that Ortom has not been paying workers’ salaries and only attacking the President to divert attention from his failures.

Analysts are of the view that Ortom’s latest play is akin to naivety, or just plain mischief in efforts to paint the Buhari government in bad light knowing fully well that Buhari cannot grant his request to purchase AK-47 rifles, even if he wanted to, seeing that he is hindered by the constitution.

They wonder why Ortom and his fellow governors would not take the necessary steps to ensure a constitutional review given the level of influence they wield on legislators, both at the state and federal levels. Though it’s obvious Buhari’s hands are tied, as far as Ortom’s request goes, the governor may just be using politics to bamboozle his people and the nation in making them think Buhari is the major cause of his headache.

By Oluwatobi Odeyinka…

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