Senate to FG: Enforce laws on illegal arms possession

The Senate on Wednesday urged the Federal Government to enforce the laws against illegal possession of firearms and called for the deployment of technology to police borders and check illegal immigrants and smuggling of arms.

Senators, while debating a motion on “General Insecurity in Nigeria”, blamed the worsening security situation across the country on illegal immigrants from neighboring countries, who, they said, were terrorizing Nigerians with the support of their local collaborators.

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The lawmakers, in the motion, sponsored by Senator Robert Ajayi Boroffice (APC, Ondo) and others, also cautioned against injecting ethnic sentiments into the security issue and frowned against ejecting Nigerians from any part of the country.

They urged the Federal Government to review the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of people and goods to check illegal immigration and smuggling of firearms into the country.

They also advised the state governors to implement the National Livestock Transformation Plan which is a modern scheme designed to eliminate transhumance in order to prevent farmer-herder conflicts. The initiative was to solve the problem of cattle grazing into and destroying farmlands.

Boroffice said though many perpetrators of killings, kidnappings and banditry in Nigeria were illegal immigrants, they were harbored and nourished by Nigerian informants, collaborators and arms’ suppliers.

Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa (APC, Bauchi) said: “These foreign criminals are already in Nigeria and they must be identified and flush out of the country. Insecurity must not be tribalised because criminality has no tribe. There are only two tribe, good and bad people,” he said.

Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe (PDP, Abia) said: “Criminals are being sent away from forest reserves where they are,” he said cautioning against sending wrong message on quit notices to particular ethnic group.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan cautioned against blaming any ethnic group for the crisis.