ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – The Federal Government of Nigeria has been warned not to approve requests in some quarters that the personnel of the Federal Roads Safety Corps (FRSC) should be allowed to carry arms to enhance their performances.
This was contained in an open letter to the President of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio by a governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Joseph Ikpea.
Ikea said Nigeria was already proliferated with arms in the hands of individuals not authorized\ to bear arms in addition to those legitimately authorized to do so which have led to avoidable deaths and incapacitation across the country and that allowing personnel of the FRSC to carry arms would be another disaster waiting to happen.
In the letter which copy was made available to journalists in Benin City, Ikpea said: “There is no contesting the fact that the level of ammunition and weapons in the hands of legal and legitimate security agencies as well as private individuals, let alone the ones in the hands of non-state actors is a soft threat to our national security and it is becoming very worrisome, thus demanding a concerted effort at retrieving same as well as demilitarising our society.
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“While, as a people, we look up to government’s actions at mopping up of such ammunition in the possession of non-state actors which has constituted as a threat to our national security, so whatever call from whatever quarter for legitimate proliferation of arms may not be in our National interest.
“This may have accounted for the reason for Nigerians of my school of thought to have strongly opposed legislation empowering the Federal Road Safety Corp to begin to carry arms. We view, with all senses of responsibility, the recent call by some few individuals and a prominent social activist senator Shehu Sani for the use of firearms by federal road safety corps to which we beg to differ.
“I wish to use this medium to call on the Senate President, Distinguished Senators, the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives to disregard the call for the use of firearm by Federal Road Safety Corp, because it is basically baseless and of no benefits to the country.”
The governorship aspirant said what the country needs is not the number of armed agencies but a reorientation of nationals to operate with one another.