By Ranmilowo Ojalumo.
The Centre for Human and Socio-economic Rights (CHSR), a non-governmental organization has called on the leadership and all members of the national assembly to discard the bill that seek to empower the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) officials to carry firearms, saying the bill is needless and wrongheaded.
The centre made the call at a press conference held at the Liberation Centre in Lagos on Sunday.
A bill for an Act to amend the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) Act, 2007 to make officers carry firearms scaled second reading last week in the House of Representatives. The bill was co-sponsored by Abiodun Adesida (APC-Ondo) and Olaide Muhammed (APC-Oyo) at plenary last week Thursday October 10, 2024.
Addressing journalists at the press conference on the bill on Sunday, the president of CHSR, Comrade Alex Omotehinse said Nigeria faces the challenge of abuse of the use of arms and ammunition in the hands of security agencies in addition to the growing proliferation of arms with illegitimate access by non-state actors. He noted that the number of agencies using arms in the country is constituting huge threat to the nation’s national security.
Omotehinse stated that rather than seeking to grant access to FRSC officials to bear arms, there should be a concerted effort at streamlining the use of arms and ammunition by security agencies towards demilitarizing the society, adding that legalizing the use of firearms for the FRSC, an agency that is supposed to operate in a civilised environment, will amount to further militarising the Nigeria society.
Omotehinse said “in addition to mopping illegal Arms in the possession of non-state actors, government must restrict the granting of blanket approval to agencies to procure and use arms considering the predilection for abuses by personnel. We therefore do not see the justification for granting the FRSC the approval to carry arms. We do not see how collective national interest would be advanced by turning the FRSC into an arm of security agencies in Nigeria.
“We call on the senate president, the speaker of the House of Representatives and all members of the national assembly to reconsider the ongoing bill seeking for legislative approval for the use of fire arm by the FRSC. We consider the proposal as needless and wrongheaded”.
The CHSR president noted that what Nigerians need now is not an increase in the number of armed carrying agencies but reorientation of security agencies for civilized operation.
He said Nigerians look up to the national assembly to help and support a genuine quest for good governance that would allow Nigerians to live peacefully with one another. Instead of granting power to FRSC to carry arms, the CHSR president suggests that existing security agencies should be empowered and supported with relevant laws and oversight that would make them to function in civilised and responsible manner.
He said “Nigerian road users have suffered tremendously in the hands of various government agencies including the FRSC. We view the proposal to grant the FRSC access to the use of arms as curious, unfounded and dangerous. We are concerned that the rights, comfort and safety of road users will further be endangered by the bill being debated if eventually passed into law.
“We are not unaware of how officials of FRSC routinely subject motorists to delay and harassment on the pretext of checking vehicle particulars. Allowing FRSC officials to carry firearms would lead to further increase in abuses against motorists as well as possible escalation of incidents of extra judicial killings.
“The FRSC should design training and re-training programs twice a year for the general road users as well as company drivers, and make regular training mandatory. Road safety officials should concern themselves with their primary responsibility of taking care of accident victims on our roads which was why the agency was created rather than lobbying to carry firearms.
“Rather than engaging in the controversy of granting FRSC the permission to carry arms, we urge the national assembly to pay urgent attention to the deplorable state of roads across the country in other to make roads motorable and safer. It is no longer news the national economy has been grossly hampered by the poor state of roads across the country. We also call on the leadership of the FRSC to deploy a reasonable means of curbing the act of corruption among its officials”, the right group’s president said.
Lending his voice to discredit the bill, the president, Voice of the Masses, comrade Remi O. Shajih said there is no rationale behind allowing FRSC official to carry arms, adding that there is an ulterior motive behind the bill which he said is against the interest of the masses. “We suspect a special interest behind this bill. Must motorists and road users wear bullet proof before they use our roads?” he said.