NBA advocates ‘eye for an eye’ on Plateau Killings
By Kingsley Chukwuka
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Plateau State, has called on troubled Plateau communities to use commensurate force to defend themselves from blood thirsty herdsmen who incessantly murder them in cold blood.
The legal body said if someone is attacked with a weapon, the defendants can defend himself with a commensurate weapon as required by the law.
“If you are attacked with a big cutlass, you can defend yourself with a big stick to avoid being killed by the assailants”, an NBA official of the NBA who responded to a question from a journalist said on Tuesday in Jos during a press briefing.
“We cannot continue to be silent in the face of this barbaric and evil act of killing innocent citizens and taking over their ancestral lands making them strangers in their own home”, NBA said.
Reading a press text during the briefing, the NBA Chairman, Jos branch, Barr. Leah Dagung Hassan, said the legal body is deeply saddened and pained by the recent spate of violent attacks in Bokkos and Bassa LGA, which has claimed numerous innocent lives and left many others injured, displaced, traumatised and grieving.
According to Hassan: “It is utterly heart-wrenching that while Plateau State is yet to recover from the horror and pain of previous attacks, peace is once again shattered by another wave of senseless and barbaric killings.
“These acts of violence are direct assault on our shared humanity, the rule of law and the Fundamental Right to Life as enshrined in our constitution”.
The legal body said its President, Barr. Afam Osiigwe SAN, heard in April called on the Government to rise up to its responsibility of safeguarding and protecting the life of its citizens.
“We adapt in totality Osigwe’s (SAN), address calling on the Government to uphold the tenets of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to wit the right to life.
“We further condemn in the strongest possible terms these brutal and premeditated attacks and call on all security agents to rise above rhetoric and deliver swift, visible and effective justice. The continued blood letting in Plateau State, under the guise of communal crises should no longer be Enough is Enough, but it should be this is Enough let’s stand up and take Actions”, Hasaan said.
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Calling on the federal government to deploy adequate security personnel to vulnerable communities, the NBA advocates that States should be allowed to establish State Police who will be armed with weapons to defend the communities.
“Communities should be allowed to defend themselves, we therefore demand that the Federal government should empower vulnerable communities with self defense mechanisms and equipment since the security personnel we have are not enough to secure lives”, the NBA said.
