Uromi: The 2nd amendment of the streets

The second amendment of the United States constitution guarantees the right of its citizens to bear arms stating in fact that “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon”.

Nigeria’s 1999 constitution (as amended) in contrast does not give its own citizens the right to a proper firearm paraphernalia for self-defence. Although you may own a licensed pump action fire arm but this is like owning a broom for protection against possibly a machete wielding attacker because a pump action gun is not going to save an owner if attacked by a population of criminals.

The first responsibility of any government is to protect the lives and property of the people. Without security there can be no orderliness. The people will survive on the basis of a fight for the fittest.

Nigeria sits on a keg of powder. All around the country people are frustrated because of the harsh economy. Crime has grown to an unbearable level, so tall that the Nigerian police is basically dwarfed by its height. Kidnapping is now a staple meal for daredevil bandits and unknown gunmen.

The Uromi sacrilege may come as a jolting to many Nigerians but for those who have been carefully observing the Nigerian security failings and the consistent brutality that the vulnerable suffer due to security failures, it will only serve as a reminder because it was coming. It is not news. The people are being pushed to the wall and they have no choice but to push back. A lot of nonsensical killings have been happening in Nigeria whereby people just decide that the life of another is theirs to take. Deborah was an example. Nigeria has become so used to the perception of their security forces being paralyzed that when danger strikes they do not even call upon the police for help. They just accept their fate as sadly they have no protection. There are various examples of periods where armed robbers take on banks, operating for hours without any peremptory rescue. This daredevil criminals take their time to do the evil they want to do and when they are done, the police then show up.

There have been excuses such as the lack of adequate manpower and civil liberties, guarding against human right violations and a host of others given by the police force and the Nigerian army.

What is apparent is that the people are now understanding that their lives and properties should now be protected by themselves without recourse to government forces. It is obvious that the Nigerian police and the army cannot provide adequate security for the country. The size of Nigeria seems to be a daunting factor for them.

In most of the rural areas where the den of criminals are usually located the people have decided by themselves to establish a vigilante system so that they will have some sense of security.

The Nigerian legislature has been in the news due to its president having issues with a female senator. The hallowed red chamber does not look to the people as a sacred temple where laws are made anymore, rather it has become a place for nonsensical arguments and theatrics. The law making body has lost all respect from the citizenry.

Long has there been echoes of a state policing system so that the police force is decentralised and each state can pay attention to its own security thereby reducing the penchant for distractions and the issues the Nigerian police are facing as regards the availability of adequate personnel to fight insecurity in a country as large as Nigeria.

Not only will the state policing system affront the challenges of numbers but it will bring about a force of personnel who know the terrain very well and understand the people within its jurisdiction.

Indeed it is deeper than just being enacted as a law by the legislature but human lives should take precedence over whatever demerits the state policing system would come with.

If the Nigerian Senate does not do this, Nigerians will take the law into their hands eventually, even more robustly than the unfortunate Uromi incident. They will enact for themselves their own 2nd amendment like the constitution of the USA. It is what the one wielding this pen calls the 2nd Amendment of the streets.

The House of Representatives and the Senate must stop the filming drama that they have been acting for a while and use their gavel for something that is really important, otherwise the Uromi incident will be but a preseason for what is to be expected in the future. Hopefully, they will use their orders rightly and expediently, if they don’t, the streets will evolve into its own system of a 2nd amendment. Hopefully, things will not get worse than they are at the moment. Hopefully.