Showing Gumption: New Zealand PM Moves Against Gun Ownership, Unlike Nigeria Where Killers Roam



The Oasis Reporters
April 12, 2019

New Zealand's parliament votes 119 to 1 in favor of a ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons https://t.co/oEc9mF9S40 pic.twitter.com/lpFlOnrucW
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) April 10, 2019
New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern has shown the world what it means to provide strong and purpose driven leadership when she made a move against ownership of semi automatic rifles by speaking eloquently in the New Zealand parliament about what she experienced in hospitals while visiting the victims of the Christchurch mosque terror attack. She noticed that not even one of the victims had only a single bullet shot. All had multiple bullet wounds, therefore, ownership of military semi automatic guns must cease.
All such licences seem revoked, and the guns are going to be recovered. Equally noticed is that New Zealanders have started to turn in their semi automatic weapons in, to government.
She had said earlier that her cabinet is “completely unified” in reforming gun legislation in the wake of the Christchurch terror attack in which 50 people died.
The details after agreeing to make changes “in principle” had been reached just 72 hours after the attack, she said, comparing her response time to that of the Australian government after the Port Arthur massacre.
“Within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms which will, I believe, make our community safer,” Ardern said at news conference.
Making New Zealand safer is the culmination of her address to Parliament and after the vote for tighter gun control, former talk show host, Oprah Winfrey heaped praise on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, saying she has “never seen such leadership”, “Jacinda Ardern projected peace and goodness, and the Arab world right back for all of us to take in”. And suddenly we saw that the other didn’t seem that much different from us”, she told the 10th annual Women in the World summit in New York, USA. “She has set a global standard in leadership with her response”.
When will Nigeria’s leadership earn such praise on curbing insecurity?
Watch: https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1116067100068593664?s=20
The kind of overwhelming reaction and prompt response by both the New Zealand cabinet and parliament is bringing tears to the traumatized citizens of Benue, Plateau and Kaduna states in Northern Nigeria who are facing death by the invasion of their lands by alleged Fulani herdsmen militia who wield semi automatic rifles, killing, burning and looting at will without restraint.
It gets even more confusing in Katsina and Zamfara States where the largely Muslim population are also being annihilated by allegedly fellow Muslim attackers against the backdrop of fight over territories for gold prospecting. Unlike the Middle belt states of Benue, Plateau States and Southern Kaduna zone who are predominantly Christian facing a seemingly Fulani Muslim violent push for cattle grazing territories.
The Boko Haram Islamists insurgency in the north east, added to the mix, makes it a worsening cauldron of violence in the entire north, that has seen a larger chunk of Nigeria’s budget devoted to defense spending with less spent on education and healthcare while there is less effort aimed at banning gun ownership in Nigeria’s northern region.
Previous efforts to change gun laws in New Zealand failed in 2005, 2012 and 2017. Deputy prime minister Winston Peters, whose NZ First party has previously not supported recommendations to restrict gun laws, said on Monday that, after Friday’s attacks: “Our world changed forever and so will some of our laws.”
That is in a resolve that Nigerians would have loved to take place in the country, as a step towards making the country safer for the citizens while arresting the kidnappers, killers and land grabbers




