…Says Curbing Arms Menace Requires Intelligence Gathering
With over 33,000 small arms and light weapons recovered by the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (NCCSALW) in 2024, security experts have called for concentrated intelligence gathering to curb the menace.
This call is against the backdrop of some security personnel from the police, military and other security agencies are involved in the illicit spread of SALW across the country.
Recall that the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ridadu had revealed that the majority of the weapons that found their way to the hands of criminals were from within — in other words, were facilitated by security operatives.
The remarks by the NSA, although made during the recent destruction of 2400 SALW in Abuja, have raised new concerns about the possibility of curbing the menace known in the past to be an imported situation.
A security analyst, Confidence MacHarry noted that the only reason the revelation by the NSA seems new is because it diverts from the military’s refrain that the arms problem is an imported one.
The lead security analyst at SBM Intelligence, a consultancy and risk assessment firm noted that the military had repeatedly blamed the proliferation of SALW in the country on the instability in Libya.
He said the then President, Mohammed Buhari also held similar views.
The proliferation of SALW in the region further led the Minister of Defence, Muhammed Abubakar in April 2024 to call on the Libyan government to collaborate with the Nigerian government to tackle the proliferation of SALW as well as the trafficking of illicit drugs from Libya to Nigeria.
Speaking to THE WHISTLER in an interview, MacHarry said, “In recent times, however, the military’s campaign against unlicensed arms manufacturers has exposed the problem that the dangers that local knowledge and production pose is quite on the same level as foreign inflows through smuggled routes.
“Security has long been established as a black hole in the country, and some retired senior military officers have been accused of embezzlement.
“However, a long-term evaluation of the security challenges is that it is detrimental to the military itself given its involvement in nearly every security threat.
“It blunts out their necessary existence, making them take on police duties which many of them have admitted to have found undignifying.
“You cannot stop arms from being in civilian hands. The Constitution provides for lawful arms possession through police permits.
“Making sure illegal arms are not readily available to bad actors requires concentrated intelligence gathering that leads to sustained clampdown on unlicensed manufacturers.”
On September 17, the NCCSALW saddled with the responsibility of curtailing the illegal spread of SALW, disclosed plans to destroy 30,132 decommissioned, unserviceable, obsolete and illicit arms and ammunition.
The weapons for destruction include 3,383 firearms and 26,749 rounds of ammunition some sourced from arm-bearing government agencies.
In January, the NCCSALW said it recovered no fewer than 30,000 small arms, light weapons, and ammunition in the country since its establishment in 2001, taking the total to 33,383 recovered yet in 2024.
Between June 2023 to June 2024, no fewer than 385,079 firearms and ammunition were recovered by security agencies from non-state actors across the country, a report by Punch revealed.
A breakdown showed that approximately 8,906 firearms and 376,173 rounds of ammunition were recovered by the Nigeria Police Force, the military and the Department of State Services.
The Nigerian military disclosed the recovery of 5,900 firearms and 128,122 rounds of ammunition in the first half of 2024.
The DSS, on its part, said it recovered over 21,000 pump-action cartridges, 440 pump-action rifles and 228,741 rounds of ammunition between May 29, 2023, and May 29, 2024.
Similarly, the police recovered 2,566 firearms and 19,310 rounds of ammunition between June 2023 and June 2024.
Earlier in July, the Nigerian Customs Service said its operatives intercepted a 40-foot container loaded with 844 rifles and 112,500 live ammunition rounds with a duty-paid value of N4bn, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
According to a 2023 report by SBM Intelligence, an estimated 6.1 million small arms are in the possession of non-state actors.