Nigeria’s former Head of State, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, recently expressed concern over the proliferation of all calibre of weapons in the country, which he estimated at six million.
He lamented that the proliferation of weapons has heightened insecurity in the country and has led to over 80,000 deaths and close to three million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
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This is coming after a recent report by SBM Intelligence indicating that the number of small arms in circulation in Nigeria in the hands of civilian non-state actors is estimated at 6,145,000, while the armed forces and law enforcement agencies collectively account for 586,600 firearms.
According to SBM, the trend of arms proliferation in Nigeria has impact on the country’s internal security which has led to violence, deaths and injury of citizens.
It, therefore, comes as a relief that there is a bill, among other things, seeking to establish the National Commission Against the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons. The bill is part of executive bills referred to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari.
In seeking to formally adopt it as a state security agency, the president in August this year also sent a bill seeking to transform the Presidential Committee on Small Arms and Light Weapons into the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons under the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA).
This bill will give full effect to the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition and Other Related Materials which has passed second reading in the House of Representatives.
I, therefore, wish to pledge solidarity and all necessary support for the move which will consolidate the proper take-off of the Nigerian Task Force on the Prohibition of Illegal Importation/Smuggling of Arms, Ammunition, Light Weapons and Pipeline Vandalism (NATFORCE).
NATFORCE is an offshoot of the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW) which replaced the defunct Presidential Committee on Small Arms and Light Weapons and served as the institutional mechanism for policy guidance, research and monitoring of the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Nigeria.
NATFORCE, therefore, is the most desiring body that can be used to augment the growing security lapses and civil strife in the country and also to nip in the bud the needless insecurity heralding Nigeria our dear country.
No doubt the security forces are not just overstretched but underfunded, and with this new development they can perform better with more sophisticated weapons, equipment and funding and then the expectation is that the causes of the conflict and how to mitigate them would be further addressed.
Ambassador (Dr) Fatima Muhammad Goni, National Chairman, Grassroots Mobilisers for PMB/Osinbajo.
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