abiding

All countries which profess to be law abiding democracies must vehemently condemn Hezbollah’s action

No result found, try new keyword!Brexit understandably dominates headlines and hearts but there are other matters beyond our shores which should cause great concern to British policymakers and MPs. That the natural beauty and antiqui...

Nigeria: Election Postponement - Inconsideration and Unanswered Questions!

opinion By Eugene Enahoro

In what has been politely described as "a most inconsiderate and disrespectful manner", the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) postponed the 2019 Presidential elections with less than six hours to go. The announcement was made in the wee hours of the night when most decent law abiding Nigerians would be expected to be asleep. Previously at several interviews and public forums top INEC officials had smugly assured Nigerians that the Presidential poll wouldn't be postponed for any reason. They repeatedly re-iterated their 100% preparedness to both the Nigerian electorate and the International Community. Their volte-face should really come as no surprise.

Postponing elections is becoming an integral part of INEC's modus operandi, and it happens with neither cogent explanation nor contrite apology. Considering the lack of notice, this postponement can best be described as a national disgrace and international embarrassment. In preparation for voting the world was alerted, international observers arrived, a curfew imposed, movement restricted, borders shut, schools closed, a public holiday declared, and flight schedules disrupted.

Virtually all economic activities were made to shut down. The last minute nature of the postponement indicates a lack of foresight and little regard for the lives and resources of the electorate. The buck must stop somewhere and that is at the table of the INEC Chairman who said the postponement was in order to "afford the Commission the opportunity to address identified challenges in order to maintain the quality of our elections... " The truth is that there is clear evidence that under his watch Nigerian elections have become increasingly deficient in quality! The INEC Chairman seems reticent to use words of true contrition such as "sorry" or "apologize" and is yet to give cogent reasons for the postponement.

The timing of the announcement at approximately 2.45am less than six hours before voting was scheduled to commence was ridiculous in the extreme. In truly democratic nations the citizens are the nation, but in Nigeria it's the opposite, citizens are routinely treated with utmost distain by those in authority. The matter has already become politicized, and as is the norm in these days of social media and fake news, all sorts of unsubstantiated allegations are flying around. Quite expectedly opposition parties claim that the postponement was pre-meditated and carefully planned to break their resolve and their finances, confuse voters, and reduce participation. There is no denying that a lot of people who travelled this time, will decide against incurring the unnecessary expense and taking the risk all over again.

Astoundingly after four years of planning and preparation all the INEC Chairman could say was; "after a careful review of the implementation of its logistical and operational plan and the determination to conduct free and fair elections the Commission came to the conclusion that proceeding with the elections as scheduled is no longer feasible". The inference is clear, his plans and strategy which cost billions of Naira have failed and Nigerians will bear the unstated costs and the burdens.

Indisputably the cost of the postponement puts a credibility question on Nigeria as an investment destination. The international community has once again seen how Nigeria, a nation in which the majority of citizens live below the international poverty line, squanders its lean resources. With all the clear evidence of shameful in virtually every sphere of Nigerian life citizens are best advised to stop wasting their shame. INEC officials feel no shame, those in positions of authority feel no shame, and there is no guarantee that this type of shameful incident will never re-occur.

The whole sordid affair is a fiasco created by paid agents of government who failed to protect INEC facilities and allowed sensitive materials to go "missing". INEC isn't really Independent because they depend heavily upon government agencies such as the Central Bank where materials are kept, Security Personnel who guard INEC Offices and materials, and the Nigerian Air-force who transport materials. But they are to blame for adopting and insisting upon an antiquated, cumbersome, inefficient, and unreliable method of casting and collating votes. As if postponing voting was not controversial enough, INEC announced that Campaigning remain closed even though under the provisions of the electoral law campaigning is allowed up to 24 hours to voting.

The questions which INEC need to provide the public with are: what is the projected cost of the postponement? How will postponing voting lead to results being more readily accepted? Why wait until 2.30am when most decent Nigerians have gone to bed? What were the logistical issues? Which states were affected? What will happen to sensitive ballot material already deployed? Who guarantees their safety and security? How can loopholes which couldn't be covered in four years, be covered in seven days? Most importantly since the election wasn't postponed for financial reasons, political interference, or security reasons, on what basis was the nation put to all the cost and inconvenience?

More Guns, Less Crime: Concealed-carry Permit Holders More Law-abiding Than Police

More than 17 million Americans have obtained their concealed-carry permits, and about four out of every 10 of them carry a firearm with them at least some of the time.

This has been the cause of much angst among the anti-gun crowd, which still believes that more guns will equal more crime. Exactly the opposite has been proven to be the case.

It was Guy Smith, writing in his Gun Facts blog, who first alerted his readers to a study showing that “people with concealed carry licenses are 5.7 times less likely to be arrested for violent offences than the general public and 13.5 times less likely to be arrested for non-violent offenses than the general public.” Referring to another study, Smith noted that “the four-year violent crime arrest rate of CCW holders is 128 per 100,000 [but] for the general population it is 710 per 100,000. In other words, CCW holders are 5.5 times less likely to commit a violent crime [than the general public].”

But it was John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, who went one step further: examining how CCW holders behave when compared to police. He concluded that “concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding,” adding, “In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at one-sixth of the rate at which police officers are convicted.”

From recent data Lott calculated the crime ratios of general public vs. police officers vs. CCW permit holders:

With about 685,464 full-time police officers in the U.S. from 2005 to 2007, we find that there were about 103 crimes per hundred thousand officers. For the U.S. population as a whole, the crime rate was 37 times higher — 3,813 crimes per hundred thousand people….

Even given the low conviction rate for police, concealed carry permit holders are even more law-abiding than police. Between October 1, 1987 and June 30 2017, Florida revoked 11,189 concealed handgun permits for misdemeanors or felonies. This is an annual revocation rate of 10.4 permits per 100,000. In Texas in 2016 (the last year for which data is available), 148 permit holders were convicted of a felony or misdemeanor — a conviction rate of 12.3 per 100,000.

Combining Florida and Texas data, we find that permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at less than a sixth of the rate for police officers. Among police, firearms violations occur at a rate of 16.5 per 100,000 officers. Among permit holders in Florida and Texas, the rate [of firearms violations] is only 2.4 per 100,000. That is just 1/7th of the rate for police officers.

But there’s no need to focus on Texas and Florida — the data are similar in other states.

Lott failed to mention that often those misdemeanors which cost permit holders their licenses might have been speeding violations or other simple violations having nothing to do with carrying a sidearm concealed. So the numbers he quoted overstate the rate at which CCW holders lose their licenses. In other words, they are likely even more law-abiding than Lott suggests.

There’s an added bonus that neither Lott nor Smith emphasized enough: CCW permit holders have reduced the rate of violent crimes committed by criminals, often merely by their presence. In 2018, the FBI analyzed 50 active-shooter incidents from 2016 and 2017:

In 10 incidents, citizens confronted the shooter. In eight of those incidents, one or more citizens safely and successfully acted to end the shooting:

• In four incidents, unarmed citizens confronted or persuaded the shooter to end the shooting. In two incidents, school staff confronted and restrained the shooter. In one incident, the citizen used his car to thwart the shooter. In one incident, the citizen persuaded the shooter to surrender via telephone during a police chase; she ran up to the shooter’s car as he came to a stop and pulled him out of his seat, bringing the chase to an end.

• In four incidents, citizens possessing valid firearms permits successfully stopped the shooter. In two incidents, citizens exchanged gunfire with the shooter. In two incidents, the citizens held the shooter at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived.

• In one incident, a citizen possessing a valid firearms permit exchanged gunfire with the shooter, causing the shooter to flee to another scene and continue shooting.

• In one incident, a citizen possessing a valid firearms permit was wounded before he could fire at the shooter.

Lott would say that this is far too small a sample size to prove statistical significance, that far more data would be needed to measure the impact CCW holders have on public safety. But as this article was being prepared, an incident in Tennessee just occurred that proves the point. As reported locally by WISH TV, on Valentine’s Day a husband “went into a dentist office and shot his wife.… A bystander, with a carry permit, shot the suspect and held him until authorities arrived.”

CCW permit holders take their responsibilities seriously. For most of them, only after much consideration do they add to their person lethal force, recognizing that with the power to kill or maim inevitably comes the potential aftermath that could cost them thousands of dollars in legal fees, not to mention personal and mental trauma. Permit holders therefore are much more likely than the general public, and the police, to do everything possible to refrain from using that lethal force except, as Massad Ayoob expressed it in the title of his best-selling book, only In the Gravest Extreme would he draw that firearm.

These studies prove just how law-abiding these individuals are, to the surprise of no one except those who want to disarm them.

An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine, writing primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Related article:

Was CCW License Holder Who Helped Chicago Police Justified in Shooting at Suspect?