IG’s order to shoot illegal arms bearers raises questions of legality, public safety – Odinkalu

IG’s order to shoot illegal arms bearers raises questions of legality, public safety – Odinkalu

Human rights lawyer Chidi Odinkalu has said that the directive of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Olatunji Disu, for police officers across the country to shoot on sight anyone found carrying illegal firearms raises questions of legality and safety of the public and police personnel.

Disu gave the directive on Friday during a stakeholders’ meeting at the Government House in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, as part of efforts to tackle insecurity in the country.

The police boss stressed that only authorised security personnel are legally permitted to bear firearms, warning that the era of passive policing was over.

In a post on X on Saturday, Odinkalu noted that the lawfulness of the act of possession of a firearm is for a court to determine, not police officers.

“The directive by Inspector-General of @PoliceNG, @TunjiDisu1, to police officers to #ShootOnSight anyone in possession of #IllegalFirearms is fraught with 2 levels of problem. One is a threshold question of legality. The other is a practical safety problem for the officers & men to whom he addresses this directive,” he wrote.

“1st, as a matter of law, the lawfulness of the act of possession of a firearm is for a court to determine. It is not a summary or administrative matter for police officers. What a police officer can do is make a determination of probable cause for arrest in connection with suspicion of unlawful possession of firearm.

“But that does not rise to justification for shooting to kill the person in possession because probable cause is not proof of illegality unless the firearm is being deployed in the commission of a crime. In that case, the justification for shooting to kill is not possession of firearm but lies in the doctrinal spectrum of self-defence.

“2nd, as a practical matter, the implicit assumption that officers of @PoliceNG have superior firepower or superior marksmanship is unfounded & unsupported by evidence. Police training these days has become worse than perfunctory & the dangerous people in arms are unlikely to have much fear for the calibre of firearms in the possession of the police or the marksmanship of many of those who have them.

“The IGP’s order could be a license to extra-judicial executions or an invitation to dangerous gunfights on the streets. Neither offers a solution to the current crisis of violence in the country. It is not as if we don’t already have enough violence & killings.”

Odinkalu, a professor of practice in international human rights law, said the IGP has a duty to instruct police personnel in a way that “conserves lawfulness” and does not “needlessly inflict danger upon them or the wider public.”