AAG Killing: Mental stability check for armed men
Each day, the need to properly check the mental state of our armed security officers is further amplified. The events involving the rift between soldiers and police men and the ones among police men against themselves continue to focus on this need.
What more could be my purpose of revisiting this issue, if not another of the not so appealing tell-tale; this time around the never heard incident of a military officer using an anti-aircraft gun to kill a police man. The unnamed soldier killed Sergeant Rowland Tafida, who was part of the Mobile Police (MOPOL) Special Forces Team assigned to Gwoza, one of the insurgency hit areas in town in Borno state.
Rowland became an unfortunate victim of a circumstance he was not part of and maybe never had the slightest knowledge. According to report, he was just stepping into the vicinity of the camp, where they were resident in the course of their duty to committing to the antiterrorism warfare in Borno state innocently and without any negative inclination when he was trashed by bullets from the AAG. He died after bleeding profusely.
The Corporal happened to have in custody the AAG. The anti-aircraft gun was just one of the enforcement the army had in tackling the counterinsurgency effort. As to how and why it became channelled away from the apropos venture it was meant for and into killing no less a person than a fellow combatant in the war effort beats heavily on my imagination.
The issue in question is not and shouldn't be anyways on the appropriateness of giving the young soldier this vital instrument of war. It was very much needed in the circumstance they were involved, so much needed that a failure to have provided them with such would be stoutly condemned. But the issue in question is as to why this soldier could betray the genuine motive of this weapon as to use it against a fellow patriotic combatant.
It's is very senselessness to assume that the altercation the seargent had earlier with another police officer over a girl could have incensed the soldier so much as to employ the machine to attack a police camp and in the process kill an officer. If anyone can believe that, I strongly disagree because of missing link in the two incidents- they do not find any union.
I smell a foul play of the kind that suggest a deep sense of betrayal to the very course which the army and the police were galvanized to project. Nothing could explain why an army officer could turn a weapon to an advantage of attacking a camp knowingly belonging to the Nigerian Police beyond the act of been sold out. Except such a one has a mental issue.
The reason we must subject our armed security officers to critical mental and psychological examination every now and then to ascertain their stability to handle and control such weapons, which have by themselves become determinants of life and death. The scenario as we have it now is suggestive of a lacuna that makes weapons readily handled by both those who are highly stable to do so and those who are not.
Nowadays, I practically freeze, going edgy on citing any officer holding a gun. The reason for this is evident.
So many incidences of deliberate and carefree shootings by our armed security men have been reported, and it seems the tides just seems to flow along. At will, they just lift the weapons they carry and make play out of such delicate matter as corking the gun and firing. These maniacal tendencies to freely shoot have caused great damages to bother officers and civilians as well.
The infamous death of Rowland is one too many of the unnecessary killings by fellow armed men, and it's high time the question as to whether it is all security men wielding various ammunition that are certified stable enough to do that. If that is not the situation, which I strongly think it's not, a process should be set to ensure that only those critically examined to be stable are recruited into arms-wielding profession.
And the check should be an on-and-off process. This will save us many of this senseless casualties.
What more could be my purpose of revisiting this issue, if not another of the not so appealing tell-tale; this time around the never heard incident of a military officer using an anti-aircraft gun to kill a police man. The unnamed soldier killed Sergeant Rowland Tafida, who was part of the Mobile Police (MOPOL) Special Forces Team assigned to Gwoza, one of the insurgency hit areas in town in Borno state.
Rowland became an unfortunate victim of a circumstance he was not part of and maybe never had the slightest knowledge. According to report, he was just stepping into the vicinity of the camp, where they were resident in the course of their duty to committing to the antiterrorism warfare in Borno state innocently and without any negative inclination when he was trashed by bullets from the AAG. He died after bleeding profusely.
The Corporal happened to have in custody the AAG. The anti-aircraft gun was just one of the enforcement the army had in tackling the counterinsurgency effort. As to how and why it became channelled away from the apropos venture it was meant for and into killing no less a person than a fellow combatant in the war effort beats heavily on my imagination.
The issue in question is not and shouldn't be anyways on the appropriateness of giving the young soldier this vital instrument of war. It was very much needed in the circumstance they were involved, so much needed that a failure to have provided them with such would be stoutly condemned. But the issue in question is as to why this soldier could betray the genuine motive of this weapon as to use it against a fellow patriotic combatant.
It's is very senselessness to assume that the altercation the seargent had earlier with another police officer over a girl could have incensed the soldier so much as to employ the machine to attack a police camp and in the process kill an officer. If anyone can believe that, I strongly disagree because of missing link in the two incidents- they do not find any union.
I smell a foul play of the kind that suggest a deep sense of betrayal to the very course which the army and the police were galvanized to project. Nothing could explain why an army officer could turn a weapon to an advantage of attacking a camp knowingly belonging to the Nigerian Police beyond the act of been sold out. Except such a one has a mental issue.
The reason we must subject our armed security officers to critical mental and psychological examination every now and then to ascertain their stability to handle and control such weapons, which have by themselves become determinants of life and death. The scenario as we have it now is suggestive of a lacuna that makes weapons readily handled by both those who are highly stable to do so and those who are not.
Nowadays, I practically freeze, going edgy on citing any officer holding a gun. The reason for this is evident.
So many incidences of deliberate and carefree shootings by our armed security men have been reported, and it seems the tides just seems to flow along. At will, they just lift the weapons they carry and make play out of such delicate matter as corking the gun and firing. These maniacal tendencies to freely shoot have caused great damages to bother officers and civilians as well.
The infamous death of Rowland is one too many of the unnecessary killings by fellow armed men, and it's high time the question as to whether it is all security men wielding various ammunition that are certified stable enough to do that. If that is not the situation, which I strongly think it's not, a process should be set to ensure that only those critically examined to be stable are recruited into arms-wielding profession.
And the check should be an on-and-off process. This will save us many of this senseless casualties.
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