License firearms if you can’t protect Nigerians’ — Rhodes-Vivour tells FG

The 2023 Labour Party governorship candidate in Lagos State, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (GRV), has urged the government to consider licensing firearms for citizens if it cannot guarantee their safety.

He made the remark on Monday during an appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, while reacting to recent abductions and the growing insecurity across the country.

This is not just about the north. We have seen abductions in Kwara and Ogun States over the weekend. Destruction of institutions and the loss of public trust make people lose hope in government.

“If people do not believe the judiciary will deliver justice, or that the police will protect lives, they must act. If the military leaves and terrorists immediately kidnap and kill, people will have to defend themselves. At some point, the people will have to take a stand.

“The idea of governance and social contract is that we’re giving up our rights so that you can provide certain services and protect lives and services. And if the government is failing to meet up with their side of the contract, then people must start to take matters into their own hands.

“People did not wait for the government to buy generators when they did not provide electricity. They didn’t wait to start drilling boreholes when the government didn’t provide water.”

Rhodes-Vivour further argued that the government’s inability to guarantee security has left citizens exposed, saying the situation now raises questions about alternatives available to Nigerians.

“I’m talking about this situation now because of the failure of the government that we found ourselves in, and in this failure, if the government cannot sit up, then they should start considering licensing firearms.

“Because you have to ask yourself: if this government is withdrawing protection from the people even before terrorists strike, will they then license firearms?”

Responding to a question on U.S. President Donald Trump’s warning that he would come into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” to wipe out Islamic terrorists if the government failed to act, Rhodes-Vivour said the remark underscores the failure of Nigeria’s leadership to protect its citizens.

We need our government to sit up and do their job. Their job is to protect lives and property; it’s an absolute disgrace that a foreign president had to make this statement for them to sit up. We want to see less performative action and more real action: holding the military accountable for their failure, investing in intelligence gathering, ensuring the president is empowering the military, creating incentives that boost their morale, not sending people to the war front not properly armed, and ensuring we have proper intelligence to marshal our troops.

“We need to highlight who is financing terrorism, how they are getting intelligence, what our intelligence structure is, why they are always a level ahead of us, what level of surveillance we are doing… “How are their supply lines being managed, and how do we break them? “

He added that it’s a disgrace that Nigeria, as a great nation with all the potential, has to depend on “someone to come and save us”.