Chief Mike Ozekhomeh
(SAN) discussing with a colleague Gordy Uche (SAN) as the
Presidential Appeal Panel resumed sitting at the Court of Appeal,
Abuja. Photo by Abayomi Adeshida 22052019
Constitutional lawyer and human rights activist Chief Mike
Ozekhome has stated that President Muhammed Buhari executive order
on withdrawal of licences guns of Nigerians is aimed at curtailing
the self determination aspiration of IPOB even as he noted that it
exposes innocent Nigerians to the murderous activities of herdsmen,
kidnappers and BokoHaram terrorists.
In a statement titled ‘President Muhamnadu Buhari’s Executive
Order Withdrawing Gun Licences: The Legal and Social Consequences’,
the senior advocate of Nigeria said, “Ordinarily, one would have
readily applauded President Muhammadu for signing an Executive
Order banning possession of guns, having regard to the unbridled
proliferation and possession of small and medium scale politically
motivated and banditorily-induced arms currently in
circulation.
“However, Buhari’s sectionalistic perception of governance from
the opaque prism of ethnicity and religious nuances do not give one
such euphoric comfort of nationalistically induced decisions.
“It seems to me a panicky measure meant to forestall the threats
by Niger Delta militants to declare their Republic by 1st of June,
and also for the now historic struggle by IPOB for
self-determination.
“Whatever be his reasons, the president and his handlers
appeared to have lost the larger picture of the citizens’ rights to
life and self defence.
“Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution provides for the right to
life.
“Section 258 of the Criminal Code which operates in the Southern
part of Nigeria and sections 59-60 of the Penal Code that operates
in the North, all guarantee the right to self defence and the
defence of one’s property.
“What the Executive Order has unwittingly done is to leave
honest and innocent Nigerians most vulnerable to the unrestrained
murderous and blood-letting activities of marauders, herdsmen,
Terrorists, armed robbers and kidnappers.
“People may now decide to possess these arms illegally and under
cover as guerrilla tactics, since even a legitimate licence cannot
guarantee same, after thorough screening by law enforcement
agencies.
“After all, self preservation is the first law of nature.
“The Executive order is also gravely flawed in the sense that
those known and notorious to illegally possess these same arms,like
herdsmen, were not even named at all.
“There now appears to be two sets of laws for Nigerians.
“Recall that the same government had incredibly set up a special
radio network station for this over pampered set of “superior
Nigerians”.
“No thought was given to the equally illiterate Nigerians of
those communities whose wives are daily raped in their homes,
children murdered in cold blood, farmlands invaded, crops eaten and
such farms then set ablaze.
” I always wonder who advises Mr President. But as Harry Truman
once declared,” buck stops here”.
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