The Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, on Monday said Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle lacked the powers to instruct the Commissioner of Police of the state to issue gun licences to the public.
In a statement at the weekend, Zamfa State Commissioner for Information, Mr Ibrahim Dosara, said the state government had mandated individuals to prepare and obtain guns to defend themselves against bandits.
But, Irabor, speaking in an interview at the Joint Exercise for the National Defence College and War Colleges of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, code-named “Exercise Grand Nationale,” in Abuja, frowned at the measures taken by Matawalle to secure his state against insurgency.
General Irabor said, “I do not think that is the right way to go. The basis for asking citizens to bear arms; I am yet to know. I believe that the Attorney General of the Federation will look at the constitution, what the laws say and what the powers of the Executive governor are to be able to do with this.”
Faulting the governor’s directive, Irabor asserted that Matawalle failed to use the available resources at his disposal to mitigate the insecurity issues within his domain.
He said, “If what I read is true, I do not think that the governor has the power to instruct the Commissioner of Police to issue licenses because the commissioner of police does not have the right to issue licenses.
“There are other legal issues other issues of governance that the governor could have addressed using the instrumentalities of the law available to bring greater peace and security.”
Further speaking he said, “The armed forces are only an instrument of policy implementation.
“We do not take instructions from State Government, we have a Commander-In-Chief, and the constitution gives the right and the powers to the commander-in-chief.”
“So, we are there because we are there to give support to the civil authority, in this case, the police.
“We do not need to restate what the issues are that have led to the deployment of the military across the country but then like I said, we are doing the very best to ensure that peace returns to every part of the country.”
