A pressure group, the Youth Arise Movement, says president Bola Tinubu’s priority should shift from second-term politics at the moment to the protection of lives and property of the citizens.
The convener of the group, Comrade Ademola Babatunde Abidemi, stated this in a press release issued on Friday June 12
Comrade Babatunde-Abidemi noted that without peace, elections would be meaningless.
“It is when a nation is peaceful we can talk about elections of leaders. If our country continues in the kidnapping and killings, who will you govern?” he questioned.
Comrade Babatunde-Abidemi while expressing worries over the rising spate of killings, banditry, kidnappings and attacks on schools across the country called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to permit Nigerians to possess arms for self-defence against terrorists.
He urged the president to act “courageously and decisively” on insecurity, warning that more than 15 years of violence have now threatened Nigeria’s collective existence.
According to him, the persistent attacks on schools, children and rural communities have shown that no Nigerian is immune, regardless of social class.
He argued that urgent and bold actions were needed to protect lives and restore peace across the country.
The youth leader opined that the president should sign an executive order “out of necessity” to supply arms and ammunition to rural dwellers.
He said the regional development commissions created across the country should be used to run training platforms and orientation centres for security volunteers in rural communities who would be armed to protect their communities and porous borders.
“Permit Nigerians to have guns, especially those in the rural areas. If Nigerians are not allowed by laws to carry arms and are not supplied the arms for the protection of our dignity, soil of birth and the Nigerian territory, very soon the urban area will be ungovernable for the government and inhabitable for all of us” he added.
