The Director-General of National Taskforce on Small Arms, Light and Chemical Weapons, Dr Emmanuel Okereke, has alleged that some politicians are stockpiling ammunition ahead of general elections.
Okereke, said this at a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
According to him, the stockpiling of ammunition by desperate politicians can be attributed to the porous nature of the country’s borders and the non-existence of a specific agency or commission to tackle the menace.
He advocated for the establishment of a National Commission for the Prohibition of Illegal Importation of Small Arms, Ammunition and Light Weapons and other related matters.
“Due to the lack of a legally established specific body or commission as obtainable in 14 out of the 16 countries in the West African sub-region, all manner of ammunition have been illegally brought into the country ahead of the elections by high-class political players.
“For Nigeria to effectively tackle the menace of proliferation of ammunition in the country with its attendant crimes, a National Commission for the Prohibition of Illegal Importation of Small Arms, Ammunition and Light Weapons and other related matters, must be established as already done by other West African countries except Nigeria and Gambia,” he said.
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Okereke, who disclosed that the Commission, had been recommended for all West African countries through a resolution passed to that effect by the Economic Community of West Africa States, ECOWAS, in December 2017, lamented that “while 14 out of the 16 member sub-regional body have complied, Nigeria and Gambia have yet to do the needful in that direction.”
He also disclosed that before the ECOWAS’s resolution, a bill for the establishment of such a commission had long been sponsored by the national task force.
“The bill, as it is currently in the 8th Senate, has passed second reading in the House of Representatives but not yet at the Senate having earlier failed to scale through the required legislative processes in the 6th and 7th National Assembly,” he further explained.
The D-G argued that, the commission, when established, would not be a burden on the finances of the country but rather a revenue earner and called on the Senate to fast-track action on the bill for the commission to be in place as soon as possible.
