By Yakubu Salisu
For over a decade, Nigeria continues to grapple with insecurity manifesting in different dimensions such as kidnapping, banditry and terrorism across several regions.
Citizens remain vulnerable to these violent attacks from rural communities to highways and even urban centers. The frequency of abductions and coordinated assaults and recent disturbing videos of kidnapped victims being tortured by their criminal abductors leaves one with the idea for practical self-defence education.
The Federal Government, through agencies such as the Police, Army, DSS and others, remains constitutionally responsible for protecting lives and property in Nigeria. However, overstretched personnel and difficult terrain often limit rapid response capabilities in remote areas especially, where victims are sometimes left to their fate before help can arrive.
Nigerians recently have seeing disturbing videos of elderly women assaulted by kidnappers using gun muzzles to hit them on their foreheads, another youth beating mercilessly with one of the criminals stepping and jumping on his chest among many others.
Against this backdrop, there is the urgent need for structured and regulated firearms knowledge programmes for responsible citizens. Such initiatives if properly handled would not amount to indiscriminate arming of the populace, but rather controlled education on safe handling, legal compliance, storage protocols and situational awareness. Like always said, “knowledge itself does not create violence; misuse does”.
Beyond firearms literacy, incorporating basic tactical survival skills into community safety programmes is pertinent in this dispensation. These could include threat identification, escape planning, emergency response coordination, and personal defence awareness.
Instead of exposing graduates to rigorous activities such as parades, Man ‘O’ War and other tedious field activities during the National Youths Service Program (NYSC) which does not in anyway translate to recruitment into the army or paramilitary agencies, carefully designed training modules, supervised by licensed instructors and security agencies, could equip such Youths and other citizens with life-saving knowledge without undermining state authority.
However, there is need for absolute caution considering the proliferation of illegal arms in the country fueling insecurity. No doubt, such policy shift would require strict vetting processes, psychological evaluations, background checks and clear legal frameworks to prevent abuse. Transparency and accountability would be critical to avoid worsening the very crisis such measures seek to address.
It is highly disturbing to continue to see able Nigerians suffer torture in the hands of such hungry looking criminals simply because they lack tactical knowledge to disarm and escape.
This call for such survival skills must be echoed by all stakeholders as many Nigerians, men and women remain in the hands of these criminals enduring untold hardship and dehumanization.